


Take No Wife, Father No Children

by Saebrin



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Jon joins the Free Folk, M/M, Showverse, Slow Burn, Warg Jon Snow, Warging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-01-15 18:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18504724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saebrin/pseuds/Saebrin
Summary: In which Jon Snow, a Brother of the Night’s Watch, breaks no vows but somehow ends up with a family anyways.(An AU where instead of meeting Ygritte, Jon runs into Tormund and his daughters first.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheCourier (partialconstellations)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partialconstellations/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My contribution to the Jonmund fandom, because I love the chemistry between these two and I wanted to write something fun and canon divergence-y with a bit of length to it.
> 
> (Also, please note that the rating may go up later.)

_Curse the Watch and every gods-damned person who let me join it_ , Jon thought as he tramped across the icy hills below the Fist of the First Men, his eyes and ears straining to catch any hint of movement.

There was none, neither friend nor foe, which twisted the knot of anxiety in his gut even tighter. He and the Black Brothers he’d been ranging with had split up to pursue a small group of wildlings, most of whom had had the good sense to scatter when faced with men of the Watch. Now, though, he’d lost them all—the wildling he’d sprinted off in pursuit of, the rest of his Brothers, even Ghost. He was all alone out here, cold and hungry and growing more frustrated with every gust of wind, every echoing crunch of his footsteps, every throb of his frigid fingers and toes.

A shuffling sound came from over the next rise, and Jon froze.

 _Fuck._ Maybe he wasn’t so alone after all.

He crouched low and slinked up the rise, sword at the ready, his mind conjuring images of a band of hostile wildlings, huge and reeking and crass, men of Craster’s ilk. He tightened his grip on Longclaw’s hilt. After a fortifying breath, he peered down into the cupped earth below—

—and met the wide, teary eyes of a child huddled in the snow, her arms drawn up round her tiny legs, her pale furs blending into the hollow. The only thing that spoiled her camouflage was the tumble of ginger hair spilling from her hood. His breath stuttered, and he lowered his swordpoint toward the earth.

“Please,” the child whispered in a high voice. “Please, please, please…”

“Hey, hey, it’s all right,” Jon murmured in his most soothing tone. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

He slid down the rise, his boots slippery against the hard crust of old snow, and then sheathed Longclaw and knelt before her. “Are you okay, little one? Where are your parents?”

He glanced around, belatedly wondering if this was some sort of trap. Would a full-grown wildling be tearing over the hill any moment to gut him and “rescue” the child? That was how this day seemed to be going.

The girl sniffled and hugged her knees tighter, drawing his attention again. “I don’t know! Papa made me stay with Tarma and Yulko ’cause I got tired, except they went off somewhere and told me to wait, and then nobody came back, and I dunno what to do.” She wiped her nose with her sleeve.

“Lucky for you I’m here, then, huh?” Jon dredged up his kindest smile, the one he used with Arya and Bran and Rickon when they needed reassurance. “What’s your name?” he asked, reaching out to her.

She grasped his gloved hand with a surprising amount of strength. “Britta,” she mumbled.

“Well, Britta, I’m Jon. Do you know where—”

A horn blast rang down from the Fist, cutting him off. A second blast followed it, and he tensed up, dropping his hand back to the hilt of his sword. “We should—” he began, but a third call echoed through the hills, turning his blood to ice.

“Hide,” he rasped out. “We need to hide.” He grabbed her hand again and tugged. Thankfully, she only hesitated a moment before standing.

“Britta, is there anywhere to hide out here? Anywhere small and out of sight?” He felt a bit stupid asking a child for guidance, especially one who couldn’t be much older than Rickon judging by her size, but she was a wildling and had lived out here for years—surely she knew the lie of the land better than he did.

“There’s, um… cracks in the ice, that way. Big ones.” Britta pointed over the hill behind herself—away from the Fist, away from where Jon had last seen his Brothers, away from everything he knew. Still, being lost and alive sounded a lot better than being _unlost_ and _dead_ , so he started forward at a jog, Britta in tow.

They raced over rise after rise, hands linked, and kept going until Britta’s breath began to wheeze and her steps slowed to a stagger. Eventually she stopped, releasing his hand to press both of hers against her knees as she doubled over.

“No, no, Britta, we need to keep going. Can you keep going?” Jon whispered urgently. He crouched beside her and scanned the hills around them. They were too exposed out here, in the open with no trees or brush or even _rocks_ to hide among, and his black clothes were surely a beacon against the white backdrop.

A rapid crunching sound met his ears, growing louder and louder as if drawing near. Jon raised his sword and turned to face the threat, placing his body in front of Britta as a shield— _the shield that guards the realms of men_ , his mind supplied a bit hysterically.

A burly figure clad in furs mounted the hill ahead of them, wicked sword brandished and a bow slung over one shoulder. Another child hurried behind him, even smaller than Britta.

The two of them froze, and so did Jon. They traded wary stares, sizing each other up, a tense silence building in the air.

And then Britta gave another wheeze.

The wildling man stiffened even further at the sound, his gaze dropping to stare at Britta past Jon’s hip. Then suddenly he burst into motion, charging forward until he was almost in reach of Longclaw, his face twisted with fury.

“Fucking crow!” the man spat. It sounded the way an angry Westerosi might say “bastard.”

There was a wildness about him, especially his eyes, which were very wide as he breathed heavily—and with a jolt, Jon realized the truth. This man wasn’t just angry, he was scared too. Of Jon? Or of whatever was coming on the tail of that horn call from the Fist?

“Where are the others?” the wildling snarled. “Did you kill them, you little fucker? Is that what the crows do now? Slaughter the Free Folk and steal their children?”

“No!” Jon blurted. “No, she was alone!” The man’s expression froze at that, then turned blank. “Look, we don’t have time for this. Three horn blasts, that means white walkers. We need to go, _now.”_

“I know,” the wildling snapped, looking between Britta still struggling to breathe and Jon with Longclaw raised. He wavered, visibly conflicted, and then after a moment he came to a decision, his shoulders dropping on a rough exhale. He sheathed his sword and rushed forward to crouch beside the little girl. “Britta?”

His hood sank back, revealing the same thick red hair as hers, and Jon let his eyes flicker shut briefly in relief. Her father. This must be her father.

“Can you run?” the man asked, cupping her face with both hands and meeting her gaze. Britta shook her head, eyes and nose streaming. “Okay. Okay.” The man stood and heaved her into his arms in a single swift move, then spun toward Jon with fire in his eyes, nodding at the second child and barking, “Carry her. It’ll be quicker.”

The second girl was barely more than half Britta’s size, and she stared up at him with her face crumpled in fear but resolutely did not cry. She stayed silent as Jon hefted her into his arms and followed the other man’s lead, sprinting up the bank of snow the wildlings had crested earlier.

At the top of the hill, Jon faltered and glanced back. His stomach gave a nauseated roll as a thick, swirling storm of snow, the only one in sight on an otherwise cloudless day, crept down from the Fist and headed straight at them.

 _Seven bloody hells_ , he thought, and forced his body back into a run.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A ginormous thank-you to all the lovely people who've commented, kudos'd, bookmarked, and otherwise encouraged me to keep going with this!

They reached the cracks in the ice after what seemed like an age, and Jon’s aching lungs and fatigued arms cried out their relief as he set the smallest wildling on her feet. Together, the four of them skittered across bare ice to the nearest fissure, a zig-zagging shape that although plenty deep, did look a bit narrow. He glanced at the wildling man’s broad body and bulky furs and wondered if he’d even fit.

The man turned to him, then ran a judging gaze of his own from head to toe. “Get in.”

Jon did so with haste, dropping into the bottom of the fissure, the sides of which were taller than him by a fair bit. The wildling handed Britta down to him, then the second girl, and uttered a quiet but guttural, “ _Fuck_ ,” as the wind picked up, whipping at his mottled furs and carrying the first flakes of snow.

“Lie down, tuck them along your sides,” the wildling ordered, and Jon obeyed, sinking to his belly with Britta against one flank and the smaller girl against the other.

Once Jon was prone on the snow and the girls had settled into place, the wildling jumped down behind him. A sudden weight sank onto Jon’s back, and hot breaths puffed against his neck as the wildling draped his arms over both girls, resting the bulk of his body on top of Jon—and, he realized belatedly, on top of Jon’s jet-black clothes.

They all lay in tense silence, Jon doing his best to breathe normally with the other man’s not-insignificant weight pinning him down. The pressure and warmth were oddly soothing, reminding him of the thick, heavy furs from his bed back in Winterfell, the ones he’d huddled under on the coldest nights—or sometimes just when Lady Catelyn’s scathing treatment left him anxious and unable to sleep.

He wished he could reach his sword. Even holding the hilt would be a comfort right now, but his arms were trapped in place and the smallest wildling was huddled against his side, blocking his access to Longclaw. Idly, in that way that people sometimes hyper-focus on small details, he realized he didn’t even know her name. She trembled against his side with one fist gripping his cloak, but not a sound escaped her, and he couldn’t help but admire her toughness. She had to be six or seven at the oldest, yet there were no sobs, no tears, no pleas for her father to comfort her. Nothing that might give away their presence to the army shambling past them—

—for that was what had begun to happen, the echoing crunches of hooves and boots and bare, decaying feet sounding against the ice and snow only yards away, a stream of noise that went on and on and _on_ , filling Jon with a lung-freezing terror at the realization that if he hadn’t found these wildlings, or if they’d waited just a bit longer during their standoff, he’d have been among that number right now, his eyes gone blue and his blood seeping from whatever horrible wounds had brought about his end.

They stayed there, still and quiet, until long after the shuffle of footsteps had passed and the wind had calmed. Then a bit longer, and longer yet, just in case.

Finally the man on top of Jon stirred, sitting up astraddle the backs of Jon’s thighs, and said gruffly, “We’re good now.” He shuffled back, and Jon silently mourned the loss of warmth even as he sat up too, the girls crawling free of his sides.

The wildling touched each of his daughters’ heads as if to reassure himself they were alive and safe. Then he gave Jon a leg up out of the split in the ice, passed him both girls, and heaved himself to the top as well. Once they were all on even footing, he watched Jon with a fresh wariness in his eyes, his hand drifting down to rest near, but not quite on, his sword hilt.

“Well, little crow,” he said, his voice gravelly, “what do we do now.” It didn’t sound like a question, but rather as if he was thinking aloud.

Jon glanced at the girls, then at the wildling. “I go back to my people and you go back to yours, I suppose.” What other option could there be? Enemy or not, he wasn’t about to kill a man with two small children under his care, and sure as hells not the children themselves.

The wildling grunted and shook his head. “You won’t make it to the Wall on your own, and if you were here with other crows, they’re all dead now. I’ll guarantee you that.”

Jon thought of the dozens and dozens of shambling dead and the barrenness around them, and let out a deep breath. He probably wasn’t wrong.

“Papa,” Britta said then, tugging at the wildling’s sleeve, “can’t he come with us?” She stared up at her father with pleading eyes. “We can’t leave him here. He _saved_ me.”

“He’s a crow, little one. Crows and Free Folk don’t mix.” In a harsher tone, he said to Jon, “If I’d found you alone, I’d have slit you from balls to throat before you could so much as scream.” But a speculative light began to appear in his gaze, and he eyed Jon intently. After a moment of silence, he said, “We could walk you back to the Wall, I suppose, but I’d want more men for that, and I’d not bring the girls all that way. Can’t have you seeing the camp, though, not if you want to leave it again in one piece.”

“I could wait here until you get back,” Jon offered, though the thought of that wasn’t especially appealing. For all he knew, the army of Others might do an about-face and march straight back the way they’d come.

His reluctance must have shown on his face, because after drawling, “Aye, you could,” the wildling paused and then met his eyes with a serious expression. “Tell me, boy, do you _want_ to go back to the Watch?”

Jon swallowed hard, thinking of the group who’d come north, of how all his friends and allies from the Watch were probably dead now. A swell of grief rose in his gut, and he tamped it down fiercely to deal with later. Then he thought of Craster’s Keep, of the foul man’s daughter-wives, and of how Lord Commander Mormont knew what happened to them and to Craster’s sons but let it continue anyways. He imagined how the next Lord Commander, whoever he might be, would likely do the same.

Really, it came down to “yes” or “no.” Did he want to return to the Watch? _No. No, I really don’t, but—_ “I must. I’ve sworn vows to the Night’s Watch, to protect the realms of men.”

“Mmm.” The wildling raised an eyebrow. “And what are _we_ if not men? Just monsters in the wild?”

Jon’s gaze flickered from the girls’ bright green eyes to their pale freckled faces, and he tried to imagine them as monsters. But they weren’t, they were little girls. Little girls like Arya, who he’d probably never see again, who bore no physical resemblance to either of these tiny fire-haired wildlings, but who had the fierce heart of one nonetheless.

“You’re people,” he said after a long moment. “Alive ones, breathing ones.”

“Aye, we are.” The wildling stepped closer, seeming to loom over him. “And is there anything in your precious vows about killing the Free Folk, or about making them your enemies?”

Jon swallowed tightly. “No. There isn’t.”

“So what keeps you from helping _us_ , protecting _us_ , to fulfill these vows of yours?”

“…Nothing,” Jon said in a moment of revelation. There was nothing. His Brothers might think him a traitor for it, but the vows themselves—he could still honor those, still keep his conscience clear, as long as he was protecting people against the true monsters of the north. Besides, with how much this wildling seemed to love his children, Jon doubted _he_ was the sort to sacrifice babies to the White Walkers or stand by while others did it.

That didn’t guarantee anything, though. What if Jon got to their camp and found he didn’t fit in? What if the other wildlings hated him, refused to accept him, wanted him gone? What if they were so awful to live with that he _wanted_ to be gone?

Unbidden, one of his father’s favorite sayings drifted through his mind: _The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives_. If they went their separate ways right now, he’d be the lone wolf. Maybe it’d be smarter to find himself a pack, even one that needed time to warm up to him. He’d miss some of his Night’s Watch Brothers—Sam, mostly, and Grenn and Pyp, and Uncle Benjen, and even the Lord Commander in a way—but if most of them had been slaughtered at the Fist, he’d be missing them regardless.

He’d left one family behind already, and the pain of doing it again wouldn’t be much compared to losing Arya or Robb or Father or any of the others, surely. Or compared to the ache of knowing that all the Starks were either dead or scattered to the four winds right now. Could he sacrifice the tiny remaining chance of ever seeing them again, if he were to abandon Castle Black and make Beyond-the-Wall his new home?

“Would your people accept me if I stayed?”

The question spilled from his mouth with more hope than he’d meant to reveal, and the wildling surveyed him again before grunting in confirmation. “You’d have to earn it… But yes, if you proved your worth, they’d come around. Most of ’em, anyway.”

Jon paused, his mind whirling and his heart full of fear, and elation, and longing for all that he’d left behind and may never find again. Finally, he let out a huge breath.

“Okay then.” He squared his shoulders and straightened up to his full height, which still left him craning his head back to meet the wildling’s eyes. “I want to come with you.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” The wildling’s expression hardened, and he said, “Don’t make me regret it.” His gaze dropped to his daughters. “You try to hurt them, or me, or any of my friends or family, and your corpse’ll be in too many pieces to count when I burn it, crow. If you want to be part of the Free Folk, you’re all in.”

Jon gulped, then raised his chin and said, “I don’t intend to hurt anybody. Not unless they try to hurt me first.”

A silence hung in the air between them, tense, and finally the wildling nodded. “Fair enough.”

Then he cocked his head with sudden curiosity, as though just noticing something, and asked in a lighter tone, “What’s your name, little crow?”

Embarrassment—and not a little misgiving—flared inside Jon as he realized he’d agreed to come live with these people, yet he didn’t even know their _names_ aside from Britta’s. “I’m Jon Snow.”

“Well, _Jon Snow_ , my name is Tormund Giantsbane, and these tiny terrors are my daughters, Britta and Sigrid.” Tormund clapped the girls’ shoulders with his huge hands, which spanned the entire breadth from their necks to their shoulder caps, and turned both girls to face east. “Let’s go, then—the light’s wasting.”

As they all trudged toward the first hill, Tormund twisted around and walked backward for a few steps. He addressed Jon again, a fierce grin lighting up his face. “Don’t you worry, boy. Us Free Folk will teach you to live without all your boring kneeler rules!”

A frown creased Jon’s face at that. Was it meant to be encouraging or ominous?

Maybe both.

Yeah, definitely both.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, a huge thanks to everybody who's shown this fic some love! The kudos and bookmarks and kind comments are so inspiring. <3
> 
> A bit of angst and drama snuck into this chapter, folks, but don't worry, the next one will have cuteness and *ahem* "totally platonic" cuddling for warmth, plus bonding time with Tormund & the mini-Giantsbanes (and possibly the arrival of Jon's badass future good-mother)! I swear it's not going to be all doom and gloom.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :)

Dusk had already fallen when they reached the outskirts of the wildling camp.

“—and you should meet Hilda, my goat,” Britta said as they passed the first scattering of tents. She’d been quiet when they’d first set off, but her silence had gradually turned into chatter, and now she was regaling him with tales of life in the “True North,” tugging at his hand as they walked.

“She’s a good girl,” Britta continued. “She’s warm at night and gives us milk and she’s really friendly.” Sigrid nodded seriously in agreement, and Jon thought, a bit cynically, that if that last bit was truth, at least he’d have some friends here at the camp—two little girls and _a goat_.

They started up what looked like a main thoroughfare, and all around them people watched Jon with suspicion, heads turning and bodies going still as though arrested by the sight of a Night’s Watch Brother in their midst.

“Don’t worry, Snow, we won’t make you sleep next to the goat,” Tormund interjected with a laugh, not seeming to care a whit about the odd looks and mutters being cast their way. He started to add something else, then cut off abruptly, his focus snapping away to a man and woman huddled at a nearby fire.

“You!” he howled, his expression shifting from mirth to murder in the span of a second. He stormed forward, and both strangers shot to their feet to face him. They didn’t look much older than Jon himself, though the man towered over him nearly as much as Tormund did, and even the woman was a good head taller.

Tormund unsheathed his sword and pointed it at their faces, and all around them, wildlings— _no, Free Folk_ , Jon reminded himself; Britta’d mentioned that too during her chatter—began to form a circle, the prospect of a fight drawing them in like hungry wolves.

“You piss-brained, dog-fucking _cowards_ ,” Tormund growled, leaning right down into the pair’s faces. The blade in his hand trembled with the force of his rage. “I trusted you, and you left her out there to die! Left her to the crows and the Others like she was _nothing_! I should gut you both right here and now.”

The man opened his mouth with a glare, making as though to step forward, but the woman grabbed his arm. “Yulko, no.”

Yulko snapped his mouth shut, trapping a no-doubt heated response. He took a deep breath, visibly reining himself in, and then looked Tormund square in the face. “We thought it was just us out there. We didn’t know, I swear, or we’d’ve kept her with us.”

“It was too late to go back when we realized,” the woman added quietly. “We barely made it out ourselves.”

Tormund’s glare didn’t soften. “If the crow hadn’t saved her, she’d be dead right now. She’d be a walking corpse because you two fuckers thought rutting in the snow was more important than my daughter’s life!”

The murmurs of the gathered crowd turned fiercer at that, many of the Free Folk shooting hard stares at the pair.

Red with shame, Yulko and Tarma—for that was who the woman must be—dropped their gazes to the snow.

A stern-faced man appeared from the center of camp just then, the crowd parting easily for him, and he laid a quelling hand on Tormund’s sword arm. “This is not the time for bloodshed, Tormund. Save it for our enemies.”

“Mance—” Tormund growled, but a shake of the man’s head was enough to silence him.

“They’ll be punished,” Mance said, “but right now, we need every fighter we’ve got. You know that.”

There was a long, tense pause, the silence somehow claustrophobic even in the open air of the camp. Finally Tormund backed away, his eyes flinty and his mouth a grim slash as he sheathed his sword. A collective breath whooshed out of the watching crowd—Jon included, he realized, easing his fingers out of the tight fists they’d formed. Tormund didn’t strike him as the sort who backed down from a fight often, and yet he’d done it twice in one day now. A relief, admittedly, because if he got himself killed and left Jon alone in a village full of hostile wildlings—er, _Free Folk_ —Jon’s head would probably be on a pike by midnight.

The crowd dispersed, everyone returning to their duties now that it was obvious there’d be no bloodshed, and Yulko and Tarma were quick to vanish among the flood of bodies. Soon Mance, Tormund, Jon, and the girls were the only ones left.

Mance leveled a grave look at Tormund. “Where are the rest?”

“Gone,” was the terse reply. “We split up to hunt. I was teaching the girls how to track, and it’d have slowed the others down. Never saw them again.”

 _The wildlings we chased_ , Jon thought with a burst of shame. _They’re probably all dead now, just like my Brothers._

Mance released a heavy breath at the news. “That’s it, then. We’ll see if any stragglers make it back.” He turned to Jon and gave him a long stare, assessing but not unkind. “Looks like you’ve brought home a stray. Who’s this, now?”

“Jon Snow. A crow, but a good one. He saved Britta from the Others. Could’ve left her behind and saved his own skin, but he didn’t. He carried Sigrid later, too. If he hadn’t, we’d all be dead.”

Mance’s eyes grew a bit warmer at that. “Is that so? And he wants to stay with us, does he?” At Tormund’s nod, he said, “Tell me, Jon Snow—are they kind to noble bastards like you at the Wall?”

Jon swallowed, feeling his expression stiffen. “No. Not really.”

“Lucky for you, then, that the Free Folk don’t give a shit who your parents are.” Mance clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll give you a fair shake, boy, because Tormund’s vouched for you, but make no mistake—we’ll have an eye on you, and if you betray us, we’ll be slow and bloody about making you regret it.” He smiled then, the motion small but surprisingly genuine. “Welcome to the Free Folk.”

Without waiting for a response, Mance turned back to Tormund and said, “You brought him here, so he’s your responsibility. Keep him out of trouble, eh?”

“I’ll try.” Tormund’s serious expression morphed into a grin. “Can’t make any promises, though. He’s very pretty—they’ll be fighting over him like crows on a carcass. Ha!”

Mance laughed as well, but then he shot a pointed look at Longclaw. “Speaking of fighting, I’ll need you to hand that over, along with any other weapons you’ve got. Just for peace of mind until people get to know you.”

Jon hesitated, uncomfortable with the prospect of being unarmed, but then he took a deep breath and reminded himself that he’d made his choice and there was no going back. He passed his thumb over the sword’s wolf-head hilt, his one tangible reminder left of Ghost, and felt a pang of loss in his belly. Reluctantly, he handed Longclaw to Mance, and then his knife too.

“Smart call.” Mance gave a final nod and strode away, heading back in the direction from which he’d appeared.

Tormund looked to Jon then and said, “Well, that’s settled. Time to follow us, Jon Snow.”

Jon opened his mouth to ask who “us” was, but Britta grabbed his hand and gave a tug before he could speak, and that was answer enough. A second tiny hand wrapped around his other palm, prompting him to glance down and meet the eyes of a silent, smiling Sigrid. Apparently, shared trauma had been a bonding experience.

Tormund strode off through the winding paths of the camp, and the girls tugged Jon along behind him.

“You’ll stay with us,” Tormund said. “Safer for everybody, I think.”

“Your wife won’t mind?”

“I’d be mighty surprised if she did, seeing as she’s dead.”

Well, fuck. What was the proper response to that? _Was_ there even a proper response? He settled on, “I’m sorry you lost her,” and that seemed to go over fine, as Tormund just grunted in reply.

From down by his hip, Sigrid piped up, “Why are you sorry? You didn’t know her.” Her voice held no malice, only confusion.

Jon waffled for a moment, because somehow, _It’s the polite thing to say_ , didn’t feel adequate, not when he was talking to a little girl whose mother was gone and never coming back—just like his, whoever she’d been. Finally, he said, “I never met your mother, but I know what it’s like to grow up without one, and it’s not easy, not for anybody. You seem like good people, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, so I’m sorry that it did.”

Quiet fell over the group, and Sigrid and Britta both gripped his hands tighter. Tormund looked back at him, a silent thank-you that Jon hadn’t expected shining in his eyes.

They wove through clusters of animal-hide tents and cookfires and goat pens, wary stares following Jon the whole way, until finally Tormund stopped at a tent that looked the same as all the others. Jon could already imagine himself wandering the camp like a lost lamb trying to find it—absolutely nothing set it off from the dozens of other tents surrounding them.

Tormund opened the door flap and dumped his bow and quiver inside, then cast a critical eye over the bedrolls visible on the ground. “Might run a bit low on furs, but there should be enough for us all to share. We’ll get you something to replace your crow clothes later.”

They ate stew around a fire not far from the Giantsbanes’ tent, and then Tormund herded the girls off to bed once they started yawning and listing sideways against him and Jon. The other Free Folk who’d eaten with them—introduced as Ygritte, Virva, and Virva’s husband, Mako—all but pounced on Jon the moment Tormund was out of earshot.

“So, are you a virgin, Jon Snow?” Ygritte asked, her eyes shining bright in the glow of the fire.

Talk about a contender for the worst ice-breaker in Westeros. “I, um…”

“It’s fine if you are.” She tilted her head and stared up through her lashes. “Bein’ green just means you haven’t learned any bad habits. I could teach you how to please a woman.”

Jon shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t… I’m not…”

“Ah, leave off, Ygritte,” Virva cut in, smirking. “He’ll come find ya if he wants to get his pecker wet. Or maybe he’ll find someone else for that.” She glanced away in the direction Tormund had disappeared, and Jon fought to keep a flush from rising to his cheeks.

He must’ve failed, because both women barked out a laugh, and next to Virva, Mako rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “How’d you end up with Tormund’s lot, anyway?” the wildling man asked, turning the bit of wood he was holding in order to run his carving knife over the underside. The project was a new spoon, by the looks of it.

Jon summarized the tale for them quickly, and Virva grimaced when he got to the part where Britta’d had to stop and wheeze for a while. “Poor thing,” she said. “She was born early, ya know, and her lungs’ve never been quite right. When the weather kicks up real cold like this, she has a hard time of it. She’s lucky you found her.”

Jon thought back to the scrape of hundreds of dead feet through the snow, then imagined himself out in the open, alone, when the army of the dead arrived. “I’m lucky I found her too.”

Ygritte leaned forward. “Aye, you are. And what else are you?” Her tone had taken on a more serious edge. “Are you a hunter? A tracker? A fighter? D’you know how to use that fancy sword of yours that Mance took?”

“I know how to use it,” Jon said.

“Good. Because if we don’t get south of the Wall soon, you’ll be needing to.”

“We can’t stay up here much longer,” Mako added, glancing up from his carving. “Not unless we all want to die, even your crow friends. The Others are getting bolder, turning up in bigger and bigger numbers.”

A chill ran through Jon. “The Watch won’t let us through, not with who’s in charge.” If Mormont hadn’t made it back to the Wall, Ser Alliser was probably the acting Lord Commander, and his hatred for the Free Folk was especially vehement. “We’ll have to find another way.” It surprised even him when he used “us” and “we,” already thinking of the Watch as something separate from himself, but a flicker of approval showed in the others’ eyes at his words. _Adapt or die_ , he thought firmly, shoving down a twinge of guilt—these were his people now, his pack, and it was his sworn duty to protect them and keep them alive, same as he was meant to protect everybody below the Wall.

“We’ve got another way,” Ygritte said, interrupting his racing thoughts. “Why do you think Mance’s been gathering us all together like this, even the _Thenns_?” She said the last bit with a marked distaste.

“Don’t go telling the little crow spy any of our plans, Ygritte,” a voice sneered from the dark behind her, and half a dozen fur-clad figures appeared at the edge of the firelight. Their gazes were all locked on Jon from across the flames. The two men at the front looked particularly hostile, and even the eagle perched on one of their shoulders seemed to be glaring.

“Not unless you want him flying off back to the roost to spill our secrets,” the eagle man continued.

“Shut your gob, Orell,” Ygritte snapped. “Tormund spoke for him. He’s one of us now.”

“Hah! C’mon, you know he’s still got his feathers, even if you wanna pretend they’re not there. He don’t belong with the Free Folk.” Orell fixed a hard stare on Jon. “Mance shouldn’ta let him stay.”

The man beside Orell snorted in agreement, and the shirt of bones he wore rattled as he shifted his stance. “Aye, look at his face—I’ll wager Tormund just wanted someone pretty to warm his bed.”

A fresh flare of anger joined the fear curdling in Jon’s gut. He opened his mouth to retort, but—

“Quit wagging your jaw, Lord of Bones, or I’ll have to break it for you.” Tormund stepped into the firelight and stopped by Jon, resting a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so relieved at the sight of another person.

The Lord of Bones took a few strides closer, and Tormund matched him, triggering a flurry of restless stirring from everybody around the fire. “You don’t give orders to me, Tormund. I’ll say whatever I want. And right now, I say we ought to make the crow into food for his own kind.” He leaned in closer, as though squinting through the skull-mask that surrounded his eyes. “Or maybe he’s not a crow. Maybe he’s a dog. He your little bitch, Tormund? I don’t think he’ll whelp for you like the last one.”

The onlookers breathed in sharply, even the ones standing behind Orell and the Lord of Bones.

Tormund’s face twisted in a snarl, and he struck with a swift uppercut, his fist smashing into the Lord of Bones’s jaw. The man staggered back, clutching at his chin and mouth and swearing viciously. Tormund followed, ready for a second blow, but a couple of nearby Free Folk lunged forward to stop him. The Lord of Bones spat out a mess of blood and knocked-out teeth and then tried to rush at Tormund, but more Free Folk grabbed his shoulders and tugged him back.

Rage simmered between them for several long moments, and finally Tormund shook off the restraining hands, back in control of his temper. He glanced down at the teeth on the ground. “Go make yourself a pretty necklace, Lord of Bones. It’ll keep you from worrying about things that aren’t your business.”

He started to turn away, then paused to add, “And if you ever so much as dream of mentioning my wife again, I’ll crush every bone in your face.”

With that parting shot, he grasped Jon’s shoulder and urged him to his feet, and they strode away into the dark.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, folks! Last night's episode prompted me to finish up this chapter, so have some unrepentantly fun, indulgent Jonmund AU flangst. For everybody wondering when our boy Ghost will make his appearance, you'll probably especially like this one. :D
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! If you do, please consider dropping me a kudos or a comment -- they totally make my day.

They passed several other fires and homes, staying silent until they reached the tent where Tormund and the girls—and now, Jon too—lived.

Inside, Britta and Sigrid were already asleep, bundled under a mound of furs on the right half of the tent. Britta’s goat, Hilda, was tucked against their feet, keeping their toes warm, and she looked up with a soft _bahhh_ when the rush of cold air from the tent flap reached her. Two empty bedrolls lay on the left—Tormund must’ve set another one out when he put the girls to bed.

Jon’s gaze caught on the way the edges of the bedrolls overlapped, and the Lord of Bones’s accusation swarmed back to the fore of his mind. _“I’ll wager Tormund just wanted something pretty to warm his bed.”_ He hesitated in the entryway. It wasn’t such a bad thought, really, though his nerves jangled at the prospect of lying with someone for the first time. And then there was the fact that they weren’t alone. Surely nothing would happen with Britta and Sigrid sleeping only feet away?

Tormund nudged him between the shoulder blades and murmured, “Go on,” so Jon stepped inside.

Hilda bleated in protest when he accidentally bumped her in the dark. “Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, squeezing past her hindquarters to reach the open space beyond.

After he’d settled onto his bedroll, the one farthest to the left, against the wall, he said to Tormund, “Thank you for what you did out there.”

“Eh, I promised Mance I’d keep you out of trouble. You won’t get any respect if I’m fighting your battles, though, so bite back next time. Show them you’re not prey. That’ll make some of the fuckers back off.”

 _Easy to say when you’re not the one who’d get murdered for looking crosswise at the wrong person_ , Jon thought. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of “biting back” with no way to defend himself. Longclaw was sitting in Mance Rayder’s tent right now, keen and dangerous and utterly out of his reach, and he doubted he’d be getting it back anytime soon.

Tormund probably guessed his line of thought, because he just sighed and tossed over a bundle of furs.

“Go to sleep, Jon Snow.”

Except Jon couldn’t, because once he’d scattered his allotment of furs over himself, he noticed they weren’t really warm enough now that he’d stopped moving and left the heat of the fire. The coverings for him and Tormund weren’t as heavy or plentiful as for the girls, which made perfect sense, but still, he was bloody _cold_.

Shivers racked his body, and he clenched his teeth and flexed his fingers. He shifted restlessly, resigning himself to a very long night—and possibly a very short existence, if he froze solid before dawn.

He was so focused on his own misery that when Tormund’s arm settled over his waist, followed by the press of a muscled body against his back, it came as a shock.

“Don’t worry, little crow,” Tormund’s voice rumbled in the dark. “I’ll keep you warm.”

The arm squeezed tighter, and its accompanying hand pressed flat against Jon’s middle, just above his belly button. He tensed. Had he thought wrong, earlier, when he’d believed the girls’ presence would keep everything innocent?

The hand lay still, though, migrating neither up nor down, and after a few moments he let himself relax into the bed-furs.

Outside the tent flap, he heard a cough and then the rustle of someone shifting position. Who were they guarding against, he wondered—him? Impulsive Free Folk looking to catch him sleeping? Maybe both? Or, most disquieting of all, maybe they were listening in to make sure he didn’t attack Tormund and the girls. He wanted to be offended at the thought, but in all honesty, he knew he couldn’t be. They didn’t know what sort of man he was yet, didn’t know if he was a monster wearing a pretty face, or a man without honor. In their boots, wouldn’t he be just as wary?

He would, and so when the rustle came again, followed by the slow scrape of a blade being sharpened, he couldn’t bring himself to be angry.

He pressed his face against the musky furs, sleep seeming an infinite stretch away despite the fresh influx of heat from Tormund. He lay like that for what must have been hours, his fatigued body and sprinting thoughts locked in seige, until finally sleep dragged him down.

When he dreamed, it was of loping over the moonlit hills on weary paws, nose down and mouth blood-tangy from a fresh kill, tracking what lingered of a very important scent.

~~~

He woke groggy and hungry the next morning, and after breakfast, Tormund settled him outside the tent with a quick, “Stay put, eh?” before leaving to find him new clothes. Britta and Sigrid kept him company for a few minutes, but then were drawn off into a game of tag with some of the other children. With his head pounding and his eyes smarting from the restless night and the sunlight reflecting off the snow, Jon couldn’t honestly say he minded the silence. It gave him a chance to survey the camp and think about his next course of action.

Because there did have to be one. He couldn’t just stuff his head in the snow and pretend there was nothing wrong in the world… No Night’s Watch hunting the Free Folk, no icy risen dead intent on collecting the inhabitants of the Real North for their army, no shortages of food or medicine. Whispers of the latter were reaching his ears at that exact moment, carried from the next tent over where a small cluster of Free Folk were debating how far the supplies from the last raid would stretch.

“We won’t have to hold out much longer, at least. Not if Mance’s plan works,” he heard, and he ducked his head toward the ground at that, hoping nobody would notice him sitting there. What plan? It must be the same one Ygritte had mentioned, right? Some way to get south?

Shouts sounded through the camp then, tearing Jon from his thoughts. He scrambled to his feet, mind going to all the possibilities—the Others, the Watch, an enemy clan? Instinctively, his hand dropped to his sword hilt, but he found only empty air at his hip. _Oh, for fuck’s sake._ He was completely unarmed right now, not even a dagger.

The shouts drew closer. Should he run? Was he a target, or would he be ignored so long as he didn’t draw attention to himself?

He was still debating when an enormous form swerved around the side of the Giantsbanes’ tent and tackled him into the snow. He hit the ground hard with an _oof,_ the air driven from his lungs. _Gods, that hurt._ He opened his eyes in time for jaws to descend on him, and…a tongue to lick his face? As quick as it’d happened, he understood. White-furred face, white chest, eyes red as a weirwood tree’s…

A flash of motion to the side caught Jon’s attention, and he shouted, “Wait! Stop, it’s okay!” just in time to keep Tormund from jabbing a spear into Ghost’s flank.

He sat up, pushing against the direwolf’s chest to make him retreat. A circle of alarmed Free Folk stood around them with weapons at the ready, though they started to relax as they realized there was no blood or viscera, and the wolf didn’t seem aggressive.

Tormund, though, hesitated with the spear still held aloft. He didn’t relax his arm until Ghost licked another huge stripe up the side of Jon’s face, tail wagging rapidly.

He eased back a step then, sighing. “Yours?” he asked.

“Yes, mine. His name is Ghost. I raised him from a pup.” Jon couldn’t have hidden his grin even if he’d wanted to. He lifted both hands to scratch vigorously at Ghost’s neck ruff. “Hi, boy. Gods, I’ve missed you.”

He glanced back to Tormund, noting the trail of new fur clothes that lay on the ground behind him, clearly abandoned in favor of the spear during his rush to Jon’s rescue. “Are those for me?” he asked.

That set Tormund in motion again, and he gathered the clothes and dropped them onto Jon’s lap.

The surrounding Free Folk seemed to take that as a cue. Having assured themselves that Ghost didn’t plan to maul anyone, they began to clear out. A few even nodded at him as they left, their eyes assessing or neutral where before most of the Free Folk had shown him only disdain and suspicion.

Jon raised an eyebrow at Tormund once they were alone. For a certain value of alone, anyway, without walls or rooms like the castle he’d grown up in. “What was that about?”

“What was what about?”

“Those looks. They were…almost friendly, in a weird way.”

Tormund barked out a laugh. “They’ve realized you’re not as southern as you look.” He cast a long stare over Ghost, then asked, “Tell me, how many folks south of the Wall keep direwolves as pets?”

“He’s not a pet.”

Tormund raised an eyebrow. “What, are you bonded, then?”

“We’re close, aye.”

“No, I mean bonded. Like a warg.”

“Warg?”

“A skinchanger. Someone who sees through animals’ eyes, can sense what they sense. Wargs can do it with dogs or wolves.”

Oh. _Oh._ Jon thought back to his wolf dreams, to nights of waking with the tang of prey blood in his mouth, to loping under the moon or rolling in snowdrifts, the cold from the latter unable to penetrate his thick fur. He thought of the previous night, spent with nose to the earth, tracking a familiar, much-loved scent that had started to fade.

The realization must have been clear on his face, because Tormund grinned and said, “Ah, so you are. That’s damned lucky.”

“Lucky?” He was starting to feel like a fool, spouting nothing but questions.

“You’ve got yourself a bodyguard, Snow. Or a spy.” He eyed Ghost’s wagging tail. “Or a loyal friend. None of those are easy to come by.”

Jon smiled wryly at that. “True enough, I suppose.”

“It is,” Tormund said with a nod. “True or not, though, it means we have a big problem now.” His expression went deadly serious, and Jon’s pulse sped up in response.

He swallowed and gathered the courage to ask, “What sort of problem?”

“A big, smelly, furry one.” Tormund’s grave face slowly changed into a grin. “How are we going to keep a direwolf and a goat in the same fucking tent?”

Jon sighed in relief, then peeled off a glove and threw it at the other man. “Gods, you had me scared. Don’t _do that_.”

“You make it too easy, little crow.”

~~~

As it turned out, the real problem with Ghost was that it was near impossible to pry the girls away from him long enough to do their chores or eat their meals. When Britta and Sigrid had returned to the tent that first day, they’d both bolted forward, squealing, “Puppy!” and after a breathy, “Can we?” from Britta, they’d crowded around to pet him, mindless of his size and the flecks of blood and dried gore on his fur.

Hilda the goat was no big fan of him, but when the first night fell and everyone crawled into their bedrolls, she stayed inside with them too, settling warily by the girls’ heads after Ghost stole her spot near the tent flap. She refused to get any closer to the massive wolf, even though he’d shown no inclination to eat her after Jon had warned him off sternly—and hadn’t that been awkward, having to tell him, “Ghost, leave her alone, she’s not for eating,” with Britta and Sigrid standing right there, patting the wolf’s shoulders and flanks as he stretched forward to sniff a terrified, wild-eyed Hilda.

Regardless, after the initial tension there’d been no more problems, and Jon allowed himself to relax a bit.

Which, naturally, turned out to be a mistake.

While he sat outside the tent the next afternoon, skinning squirrels for the stew pot—he’d been trusted with a tiny knife, miracle of miracles!—and watching Britta and Sigrid receive what was probably history’s first-ever direwolf “horsey ride,” a tiny older woman with scars slashed down her cheek and chin approached him. The brace of rabbits looped over her arm gave the impression that she’d just returned from a hunting trip. Her red hair was graying and her eyes were lined with crow’s feet, and she walked with a hitch in her step, but the fire in her eyes was unmistakable.

“You, boy! You’re the crow everyone’s yapping about?”

Jon paused, then set the knife aside deliberately and stood. Her head came up to his chin. “I am.”

“Hmmph.” She looked him from head to toe in a critical manner, her lips pressed together. “A small one, aren’t you?”

Jon wasn’t sure how to reply to that, but he didn’t have to. She continued without giving him a chance to speak. “But I don’t care about that. I know better than to think little people can’t take men to pieces just as well as big ones.”

Judging by her stance and the set of her jaw, Jon figured he understood _exactly_ why she’d know that. “Aye, they can,” he said.

“I know other things, too. I know that Tormund Giantsbane brought you here. I know that he’s a tall-talker and a sloppy drunk, and that he falls for people hard and fast, and that he’d _never, ever_ let a stranger so close to his family unless he believed they were someone worth trusting. I also know that he’s my good-son and the man who loved my only daughter best, and that I’ll protect him and my granddaughters with every bit of fight left in me.” Her voice grew quieter yet somehow even more fierce. “You’re going to be good to them, crow, or you’ll not be long for this world.”

Jon met her gaze and squared his shoulders. “I have no intention of doing anything less. They’ve been kind to me, and they’ve trusted and helped me. I’m going to do the same for them, whether you think I deserve to be here or not.”

The woman nodded slowly. “Fair enough, I suppose. They like you right now, from what I can see—don’t fucking ruin it. I’d have to hunt you down, and my old bones aren’t up for that kind of work anymore.”

She leaned in closer and wrapped a hand around his forearm, her grip painfully tight. “Now, do we understand each other?”

Jon gave her a nod. “We do.”

A warning growl broke the silence that followed, and the woman went stiff and still. Ghost padded closer behind her, his lips skinned back and his ears flattened, Britta and Sigrid still clinging to his back. “Grandma,” Britta squeaked, looking uncertainly between them and Ghost.

“It’s fine,” Jon said, addressing both her and the wolf. After a moment, Ghost took his word for it and turned away, posture relaxing.

The woman’s exhale was audible as the wolf left. She raised her chin and looked Jon in the eyes, resolute. “I’ll go through the direwolf too if I have to.”

“I’d expect nothing less. You’ll never need to, though. We want the same things.”

She cracked a smile then. “Do you know what? I believe you. Or at least, I believe that  _you_ believe you. Don’t disappoint me, crow.” She slapped the brace of rabbits down on the makeshift table he’d been working at. “Skin these, eh?”

She started to leave, then paused. “I’m Ragna, by the way.”

And then she strode off, Jon watching her retreating figure with mingled apprehension and respect.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have an update, everybody! <3 Thanks once again for all the lovely feedback—it really inspires me and is so encouraging, and I appreciate every single comment and kudos and bookmark.
> 
> I plan to continue this story no matter what happens in the finale, so I hope you guys are down for plenty more Jonmund flangst in the weeks to come.
> 
> Also, as a heads-up, I went back into previous chapters and retconned what happened to Longclaw—in the new version, Mance took the sword when Jon first arrived in camp instead of Ygritte bringing it to Mance later. This just seemed a little more realistic to me; I hope you all agree!

In the pitch black of night, Jon woke to a scream.

It was close and high, the breathy sound of someone insensate with terror. He fumbled free of the furs, and his heart thundered as he grasped for a sword that wasn’t there.

Tormund’s arm had jerked away from its hold around his rib cage, and Jon could feel him thrashing upright as well. Instead of rushing outside, though, he just squirmed away from Jon and began to murmur, “Shh, shh, you’re okay. It’s okay.”

The tent flap jerked open, causing a burst of frigid air, and Virva leaned inside with a torch in her hand. Its flame guttered and cast wild shadows in the small space.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded, her breath clouding in front of her like whorls of smoke.

“We’re fine,” Tormund said, and it appeared to be true, for the screaming had died off into heaving breaths. “Sigrid’s dreaming again.”

He’d risen up on one elbow and was now stroking Sigrid’s hair back, using slow, repetitive motions. On the far side of her, Hilda the goat had huddled into the crook of Britta’s arm, eyes wide with lingering fright, though Jon was impressed she hadn’t tried to flee.

“The monsters,” Sigrid whimpered, her cheeks and eyes shining wet in the torchlight. “The monsters with the blue eyes, they came and hurt everybody. It was dark, and the screaming…” She trailed off with a shudder.

Ghost crawled closer then and pressed his muzzle against Sigrid’s leg, as though in silent comfort. Sigrid petted his head and shoulders on reflex, her hands shaking. Britta sniffled on the other side of her. Their shared misery made Jon’s throat feel tight.

In a voice like velvet-wrapped iron, Tormund said to both girls, “You remember what I told you last time? It’s still true. I’ll kill any dumb fucker who comes near you, no matter what their eyes look like or if they don’t have eyes at all.”

“You promise?” Britta whispered, asking for both of them if Sigrid’s pleading gaze was anything to judge by.

“I promise,” Tormund replied gravely, reaching out to squeeze her hand.

“Your papa’s a big ol’ bear of a fighter, and he’s not alone,” Virva added from where she’d crouched in the doorway. “I’ll protect you too, and so will Mako, and Ragna, and Ygritte, and Jon. We’re all looking out for you, and for each other.”

She glanced at Jon, her expression drawn but honest.

“Aye, we are,” he said, and meant it.

Tormund smiled down at the girls. “See? Go back to sleep, little ones—none of those scraggly skeletal fuckers are gonna be causing trouble on our watch.” Ghost nosed at Sigrid’s hip and then Britta’s, as if to agree.

Virva met Tormund’s gaze for a moment, and after they traded nods, she ducked outside and let the tent flap sink shut. Cold air gushed over Jon’s face again, and the tent plunged into darkness.

In the quiet that followed, Jon settled back under the furs. He stared at the stretch of black where he knew the tent flap to be, a sense of unsettlement heavy in his gut as Tormund and Ghost lulled the girls back to sleep. There’d been something in that look Virva and Tormund shared, something fierce and resolute but _terrified_ , as if they weren’t sure if their promises could be kept, though they damn well planned to try.

Finally, after many minutes, Jon could hear Britta’s soft snores start up. Sigrid’s breathing gradually slowed and deepened, too, and then Tormund shuffled backward until he was fully on his bedroll. The furs jostled overtop them both as Tormund rolled over and squirmed closer. Soon, his body was radiating heat where the lines of it pressed against Jon’s back and hips and thighs.

“Does that happen often?” Jon asked, thinking back to the practiced way Tormund had soothed the girls and the way Virva had immediately understood what was going on.

Tormund tensed at the sound of his voice, probably having thought Jon was asleep. Then he relaxed all at once, his body slumping even closer.

“Once or twice a month, maybe.” He curled an arm over Jon’s side and hooked their legs together, his beard prickling the shell of Jon’s ear. His voice was a low murmur lest he wake the girls. “They’re not nightmares. Not the normal kind, at least. My wife, Dreya, she had the same kind and they’d just show up like rot, poisoning her sleep. She couldn’t make them stop, and neither can Sigrid.” His fingers flexed against Jon’s stomach as though he was trying not to make a fist. “Worst part is, they always come true.”

Jon’s breath caught in his throat, and Sigrid’s words from earlier rang in his ears.  _“The monsters with the blue eyes, they came and hurt everybody.”_

“Her grandmother called it the family gift,” Tormund continued, “except Dreya hated that, said if it was a gift, she’d knee the god who gave it to her right in the balls when she reached the afterlife.” His quiet laughter sent vibrations through Jon’s back. “I don’t blame her. Who’d want to dream about how we’re all going to die?”

Jon hesitated, then figured he’d better ask while Tormund was already on the subject. “How _did_ she die? Your wife?”

They lay in silence for a long beat, and Jon started to regret speaking. Maybe the other man had just wanted him to listen. When Tormund finally spoke, though, his voice was pensive and gruff rather than angry. “She got sick. The slow kind, withering away, not the sort where you catch wound-fever and die quick. Even at the end, when she couldn’t get out of bed, she was the strongest woman I’ve ever seen. A _warrior_.” His voice held a note of nostalgia. “Sigrid was tiny then, barely walking, and Britta was only knee-high. I don’t think either of them remember her. They’ve got her good heart, though, and her smile, and her stubbornness.”

“You must have loved her a great deal.”

Tormund exhaled a long, slow breath against his neck. “Aye, I did. Might be the best love of my life, but we’ll see, I s’pose.”

“Might be?” Jon couldn’t hold back his surprise.

“What, you think people can only fall in love once? Pssh. Hearts are bigger than they seem, Jon Snow. There’s room for every kind of love, and lots of it. Some people have nasty shriveled ones, yeah, but others are huge as mountains. When my daughters were born, I knew mine was as big as the Frostfangs.” Tormund shook his head, his beard rasping against Jon’s stubble. “Think of it this way—love is a lot like fucking. If you have a good strong go, it might take you a while to recover, but eventually you’ll be ready again.”

Jon thought on that for a moment. The choice of analogy made him suddenly conscious of the crotch pressed against his arse, but he couldn’t fault the logic.

“Could you love someone else as much as her?” For some reason, the thought made his chest ache, just a bit.

“Aye, I think so. But they’d have to be tough, and brave, and have a good heart.” Tormund huffed a laugh. “And probably an iron will, too, to withstand the little ones’ puppy eyes.”

Jon smiled into the darkness. “That they would.”

Tormund sighed, squeezing the arm that lay over Jon’s side. “You ever been in love, Snow?”

“No,” Jon admitted. “Not romantic love, anyway.”

“Mmm. You will be someday, I bet. With any luck, you’ll never have to find out what losing ’em is like. The ones who are gone never really leave, though, and the ones who come after don’t shove them out. You just make space.”

Jon’s mind went first to his blood family, his Stark family, and then to this new one, small and fiery and welcoming. Maybe, just maybe, if the world didn’t fall down around their heads first, he could belong to both.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to all the folks who've commented, kudosed, bookmarked, and/or sent me general good vibes! I appreciate every single one of you, and knowing you're enjoying the story is such strong inspiration for me to write more. <3
> 
> This chapter's a bit heavier on plot and warging bizz and lighter on actual Jonmund, but I hope it'll be a fun read nonetheless, and you can look forward to some big relationship developments in the next chapter! :D
> 
> Side note: Johnna and Willa are Karsi's daughters, and Karsi herself will be coming into the story pretty soon too.

As the days and nights melded, stretching into weeks, Jon found himself more and more at home in the Free Folk camp. He’d finally stopped having to red-facedly ask for directions every time he got lost, and the glares and sneers had died away in favor of neutrality, or in some cases, even overtures of friendship.

Ygritte had apparently taken it upon herself to integrate him even more, because around the fire one afternoon, as she fletched arrows between bouts of scratching Ghost’s ears, she glanced up and said, “So, Tormund tells me you’re a skinchanger. I suppose being a pretty southern lordling wasn’t fancy enough for ya?”

“I dunno about the ‘fancy’ part.”

Ygritte waved her hand dismissively, the arrow she held bobbing alarmingly close to his eyes. Jon leaned back out of poking range. “Oh, come on, Snow. If you’re anything with those curls and those eyes and that pretty, pretty face, it’s fancy.”

Jon rolled his eyes in response. For all her aggressive flirting during their early encounters, Ygritte had mellowed out quite a bit now, and her comments seemed more reflex than anything. Still, he’d been called “pretty” more times in the last month than in all the rest of his life put together.

Ygritte glanced up from her fletching again, her face gone serious. “There’s a few others like you, you know. Ones who could teach you to warg your wolf. It’s a right useful skill, that, and one not many of us have.”

Jon hesitated. The thought was tempting, for sure, but his only experience with skinchangers so far had been Orell-the-arsehole. What if Orell was the norm and not just a nasty outlier?

“Snow?” Ygritte prompted, making him realize that he’d stayed silent too long. “What’s goin’ on in that empty head of yours? Don’t you want to learn?”

He sighed and leaned forward to scratch Ghost’s belly, drawing a satisfied huff from the direwolf for his efforts. “Of course I want to, but I don’t know if I _can_. Help comes with a price, and I don’t have anything to trade, now do I?”

Ygritte paused, biting her lip in thought. After a moment, her eyes turned sly and she said, “Stay put. I’ve got an idea.”

And then she was up and gone, vanishing among the tents and the milling Free Folk.

With another sigh, Jon turned back to his work. He was patching a tear in one of Sigrid’s spare shirts, and it was slow going. Although sewing wasn’t his strong suit, he’d learned enough of the basics at Castle Black to manage a clumsy but serviceable job. It was nothing like Sansa’s intricate work, but it’d do for now.

His mind wandered back to the idea of warging as he picked out a wonky stitch, and a slow smile crept onto his face as warmth built in his chest. Ygritte had seemed confident she could find a solution for him; maybe she’d succeed.

He could hope, at least.

She returned an hour or so later, triumph clear in her posture, and shot him a cocky grin as she tugged him to his feet. Ghost lifted his head in brief curiosity, then settled back down with a sleepy huff. “I worked some magic of me own for ya, Jon Snow. Come on.”

And so he found himself following her across camp, even past a circle of honest-to-gods _giants_ , to introduce himself to a Free Folk skinchanger, of all things. He’d barely remembered them from Old Nan’s stories as a child—hells, he’d not even recalled what “warg” meant until Tormund explained it to him after Ghost’s arrival. The longer he spent among the Free Folk, the more surreal it all felt. He was _magic_. He was something _rare_ , but not in the way he’d always been rare, the only bastard of House Stark, the only one who was never quite allowed to belong, who would never be good enough.

Excitement and hope, apprehension and uncertainty… they all whirled around inside him, making his chest ache and his stride shorten even as part of him wanted to rush forward. Because it felt good right now, to know he had a gift, to know he had something that was valuable among the Free Folk, but he ought to be bracing himself for the inevitable letdown of realizing he wasn’t going to get what he wanted, shouldn’t he? That’s what a lifetime as a bastard had taught him—that very few of the things he truly, desperately wanted would ever become reality, and that it was safer to temper his expectations now to avoid getting his heart crushed later.

Why should this be any different?

 _Because you’re not a bastard here_ , his mind whispered. _Not among the Free Folk—you’re just a man. One who can be useful to them, instead of a burden or a reminder of past mistakes._

“Gods, are you always this slow?” Ygritte chided, drawing his attention as she dodged a pile of rope someone had left on the ground. Jon barely avoided tripping over it in his haste to catch up to her. “If we miss him at the wood pile, we’ll have to interrupt his supper, and that’s a _bad fuckin’ idea_ when you want a favor.”

She led him up to a stack of communal firewood near Mance’s tent, where a man stood with his back to them. His bald head gleamed under the setting sun, and an enormous brindle-furred hunting dog snuffled at the ground beside him, its muzzle gone gray with age. The man straightened at their approach and turned to face them, several chunks of wood piled in his arms. Jon took note of the scarring across his left eye and his nose—it looked messy, as though it had come from claws instead of iron or steel.

“Ingvar!” Ygritte gave him a smile. “Meet Jon Snow. He’s the warg I told you about. Green as a new leaf, but Tormund thinks he’s got potential.”

She said the last bit with a certain gravity, as though Tormund’s opinion was a swaying factor. And maybe it was—since Jon had arrived, he had come to understand that many of the Free Folk respected Tormund, trusted his judgment. It’d been a sobering realization early on that only Tormund’s protection had stood between Jon and a slow, bloody death when they first showed up at camp. In the weeks that’d followed, though, Jon liked to think he’d swayed a few people into trusting him in his own right. Ygritte and Virva and Mako came to mind, though on their heels was the specter of Ragna, who still watched Jon like a hungry, suspicious hawk every time they crossed paths.

Ingvar shifted the firewood in his arms, prompting Jon to speak.

“Hello,” he said, feeling a bit awkward. There was no use offering his hand since both of the other man’s were already occupied, so he curled his fingers inside the too-long sleeves of his fur coat instead.

Ingvar had only one eye, hazel and heavy-lidded, and he fixed it on Jon sharply. The dog stared at him with equal intensity, which was a bit disconcerting. Discomfort welled up inside of Jon, and he wished fervently that Ghost were there beside him.

When Ingvar didn’t seem inclined to break the silence, Jon racked his brain for something else to say. “Who’s this?” he asked, nodding toward the dog.

Ingvar didn’t respond, just continued to stare, so Ygritte took it upon herself to finish the introductions. “Her name is Sharza.”

“A strong name. She looks like quite the hunter.”

A few beats of awkward silence followed, and Jon started to wonder if he should just leave. Was this some sort of test? Was Ingvar waiting him out, seeing whether he’d give up, or was he just fucking with Jon and had no intention of helping him either way?

The soft padding of footsteps met his ears, and then Ghost’s giant head bumped against his hip, the direwolf appearing at his side as if summoned by Jon’s discomfort. His lips quirked into a smile, and he dropped a hand to pat the wolf’s neck. _Good to see you, boy._

Ghost accepted the touch readily, but his ears were pricked forward and his crimson gaze was trained on Sharza. The dog locked eyes with him, and they stayed like that for a long, still moment, until finally, Sharza’s fluffy tail began to wag.

“Will you teach him?” Ygritte asked.

Ingvar glanced from Ghost to Sharza, then to Jon. He held eye contact with Jon for a prolonged moment, neither of them blinking. Then he grunted and strode away, the dog quick to follow.

Jon’s nerves abated only slightly as he watched them leave. Gods, were there any Free Folk who _didn’t_ stare straight into a man’s soul on the first meeting?

“Was that a yes?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm. He must like you and your beast well enough, or he’d’ve spat at ya or worse.” Ygritte slapped his shoulder, though he didn’t feel the impact much through the furs. “Not the chattiest of souls, but he knows his business and he ain’t a bad fella. He’ll be a right sight better at teaching you than Orell would.”

Jon snorted. “That’s because Orell would rather scoop my eyes out with a spoon than teach me anything.”

Ygritte’s laughter came as a puff of ghostly breath. “Aye, you’re not wrong,” she said, starting back toward their fire pit. Jon fell into step beside her, Ghost at his heels. “Good thing we found you someone better.”

“Speaking of which, what’s in this for him?”

Ygritte smirked. “Those scars on his face? They came from Orell’s eagle, during a drunken spat years ago. Orell hates you, and Ingvar hates Orell even more, so he’ll help you just to spite the fucker.”

For the first time in his life, Jon felt a swell of gratitude for someone else’s pettiness.

~~~

“Try again,” Ingvar ordered, poking at the contents of his stew pot absently. “But better, this time.”

Jon held back a groan at the command. When Ygritte had offered to help him find a warging mentor, he’d thought it sounded fun. This, though? This was not fun.

They’d had three sessions in as many weeks since Ygritte had introduced them, and though Ingvar at least spoke in short, gruff bursts now instead of just staring at him, progress was slower than Jon had hoped for. Growing up, he’d been a natural at most things—swordsmanship, archery, reading and writing, hunting, horse riding—but warging was an entirely different kettle of fish. In fact, it was probably some sort of funky cave-fish with no eyes, because it was just _not working_ for him. How in seven hells could something be easy in his sleep, yet so difficult he couldn’t manage it when awake?

He groaned and scrubbed a hand over his stubble, then tried again as Ingvar had ordered. _Warg…_ he tried to will himself. _Warg, damn it. Ghost, where are you?_

This attempt felt the same as all the others, at first, as though he was straining toward something, trying to force it to happen, yet getting nothing but a sense of emptiness and boredom…and, to be honest, hunger, spurred on by the smells wafting from Ingvar’s stew pot. Venison, gravy, a few precious potatoes left from raids south of the Wall…

Then, out of nowhere, it was as if something popped into place, like a dislocated shoulder into its socket. His eyes rolled back of their own accord. His eyelids flickered, dropping his world into blackness.

When he opened them again, scarcely a blink later, he was stretched out on the ground, staring up into Britta’s dirt-smeared face, her curls half-fallen out of the simple leather tie Tormund had used to bind them back this morning. Normally her ginger hair was vibrant, but right now, the world was awash in shades of gray.

Britta grinned toothily down at him, then sprang away with a peal of laughter when a second girl, one of the many children Jon had seen playing games with Britta and Sigrid over the past weeks, grabbed her arm and said, “Come on, we’re the spearwives!”

“You got to be the spearwives _last_ time!” a high little voice snapped back. Its owner stomped into view, an even smaller girl with her face creased in outrage. Trailing behind her was Sigrid, covered in just as much dirt as Britta.

Jon glanced around at the hard-packed snow before him. Where had they even _found_ dirt?

“We never finished the game,” the first girl told the smaller one, tugging Britta’s arm again. “We can’t switch halfway, that’d be dumb.”

The smaller girl scrunched her face in response. “But we’re sick of being the crows, Johnna! See, Sigrid agrees with me.” Sigrid nodded in silent solidarity. “Why can’t we be the spearwives?”

“Because we’re older,” the first girl, Johnna, shot back. “Mama said I’m in charge when she’s not around, remember? She ain’t here right now, so _I_ get to pick. And I say you’re the crows.”

“Being a crow’s not that bad, Willa,” Britta added, her tone placating. “What about Jon? He was a crow, and he’s strong and brave just like Papa.”

“Doesn’t count,” Willa said in a sulky voice. “He has a Free Folk heart, and the Free Folk are way better than nasty old crows. I bet if he was stuck with them, he’d rather be a spearwife too.”

 _Gods, she’s a fierce one_ , Jon thought, his mouth—and Ghost’s—pulling back into a smile. _Arya used to pout just like that when she was angry._

A wave of melancholy washed through him at the thought of her, setting his heart to aching, and he almost missed Johnna’s response.

“How about this? It can be your turn once we’re south of the Wall.”

“That’s not _fair_!” Willa’s voice cracked, and tears filled the corners of her eyes. “What if the climbers don’t make it, and the black castle doesn’t get took, and we’re stuck up here forever? I don’t wanna be a crow forever!”

Black castle? She couldn’t mean Castle Black, could she? Seven hells, was that the plan everybody was so hush-hush about, falling into silence whenever he was in earshot? The one Tormund kept disappearing to Mance’s tent to help with (presumably)? His mind raced at the thought of the Free Folk attacking the Wall, at the carnage it’d lead to on _both_ sides of the conflict. There weren’t enough Night’s Watch left to hold Castle Black against an attack, but the top of the Wall had all kinds of weapons that could kill Free Folk in droves. Should he warn Mance about those? Should he just keep his mouth shut as if he knew nothing? Clearly, he was supposed to be in the dark—maybe right up until the attack itself, or at least until the Free Folk started their march toward the Wall and the truth could no longer be hidden. Gods, what to do…

“They’re going to make it,” Johnna said, interrupting his inner crisis. Her voice held a softer edge now, more reassuring than argumentative. “And when we go south, it’ll be warm and green with lots of good hunting, and I’ll let you be a spearwife, okay? It won’t even be that long. I heard Mama talking to Dim Dalba last night, and he said it’ll be in the next couple of months.”

 _A couple of months_ , he thought numbly. _A couple of months and then hundreds, maybe thousands, of people are going to die._

Willa’s mouth twisted as if to hold back a sob, and with a sigh, Johnna gathered her little sister into her arms. “You’ll see,” she said. “Mama, Britta and Sigrid’s papa, Mance Rayder—they’ll beat the crows and save us from the Long Night. We’re going to be fine.”

 _Aye, you are_ , Jon thought fiercely, lifting Ghost’s head to stare at the sisters, whose embrace had now been joined by Britta and Sigrid. **_All_** _of the Free Folk are. I’m going to make sure of it._

He shut his eyes, and when he opened them again, he’d landed back in his own body with a gasp. He sat there for a moment, reeling, before he looked up at Ingvar. A spark of approval shone in Ingvar’s eye, mingled with smugness and satisfaction. “Finally managed it. The first time’s a shocker, eh?”

Jon nodded shakily. “Aye, it is.”

_Even more than you know._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everybody who's commented, kudos'd, and bookmarked! You guys are the best. <3 I really hope you all enjoy this chapter.

The next day, in the wan light of morning, Tormund shook him awake gently. Britta’s snores still filled the tent, so it was no surprise when Tormund huddled close to whisper in his ear. “I’m taking some of the Free Folk hunting. Come with us?”

“Mmm, okay,” Jon responded sleepily, curling toward the warm bulk of Tormund’s body, half intent on just tugging Tormund back into their nest of furs with him. The man was already fully dressed, boots and all, and clearly had been awake for a while, but maybe Jon could convince him…

A hand brushed over his head, smoothing his curls down, and Tormund’s little huff of laughter puffed against his face. “C’mon, Jon Snow, up and at ’em. We’ve got lots of mouths to feed. Ragna will check on the girls while we’re gone.”

No more sleepy cuddles on the agenda, then. Jon sighed and rolled over, giving in to the unfortunate reality. “Okay, okay, m’coming.” He fumbled for his boots and started tugging them on.

“Do I get a weapon?” he thought to ask.

“Not yet,” Tormund said, “though you’d have one already if it were up to me. Mance will come around soon.”

“If I’m not armed, what am I coming along for? I’m no master tracker.”

“Mostly for hard labor and your wolf’s nose,” Tormund admitted, giving him a pat on the shoulder. He grinned and leaned closer, one eyebrow quirked, voice going deeper in a way that sent a spike of heat through Jon’s belly. “Don’t you want to spend some quality time with me, Snow? Alone in the woods, just you and me…” He leaned closer still, as though about to share an intimate secret. “…and your giant fucking direwolf and half a dozen people you’ve never met.” With a quick bark of laughter, he slapped Jon’s chest and stood up.

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake._ Jon resisted the urge to press his palm between his thighs, against the half-hard flesh stirred to life by a combination of morning wood and Tormund’s teasing. And, mortifyingly enough, by Tormund’s _laugh_. This man had been sent by the old gods to torment him, surely.

Tormund ducked out of the tent, and with a resigned sigh, Jon adjusted himself and rose to follow.

~~~

When he and Tormund met up with the rest of the hunting party at the edge of camp, three men and three spearwives were waiting, though Jon didn’t recognize any of them.

They all set off together, taking it in turns to pull the pair of sleds they’d brought for large game. The wind was especially strong, and it howled and battered at them as they trudged up icy slopes and waded through snowdrifts. A couple of the biggest Free Folk led the way, trailblazing for the shorter hunters in the group, for which Jon was silently grateful. He stayed near the back of the pack with Tormund close behind him.

After a few hours’ trekking, they reached the outskirts of the Haunted Forest and its evergreens heavy with ice. If they were lucky, there’d be enough game to make the effort worth their time.

Once they’d cleared the tree line, the forest swallowed up the wind, and they no longer needed to shout to be heard. Ghost wandered off with his nose to the ground, searching for prey of his own. Jon didn’t bother calling him back.

Instead, he slowed his pace a bit more, opening up a few yards between him and the spearwife in front of him. The snow wasn’t so deep now that they were into the trees, and Tormund moved up to walk beside him.

Jon eyed the other hunters, judging if they were out of listening range. “We need to talk,” he said quietly.

Tormund shot him an assessing glance. “That sounds ominous.”

“Wasn’t meant to be. I just… Something came up yesterday. Something I heard the girls talking about.”

Tormund grunted, a wordless cue to continue as he held back an evergreen bough so it wouldn’t spring into Jon’s face.

Jon ducked past the bough, then took a deep breath and forged ahead, both physically and verbally. “I know there’s a plan to attack Castle Black. That the Free Folk are going to hit it from the north and south at the same time, within the next couple of months.”

Tormund’s steps faltered briefly before he regained his stride. “It was going to come out sometime, I suppose. Well? What do you think of our grand plan?”

“I think we should avoid using it if we can.”

Tormund threw him a sharp look. “Is that the crow in you talking, or the free man?”

“Both. Neither. Look, there’s been enough death, Tormund. We should at least try to parley with them first.”

“We’re not _people_ to them, Jon,” Tormund said, his voice filled with bitterness. “Would you parley with stags, or wolves, or the fucking hares we put in our stew pots? No, you fucking wouldn’t. And the Night’s Watch won’t either.”

“…maybe not, but you do have somebody they _will_ see as a person.”

“Mmm. And you’ll go in there and be that person for us, will you? They wrote you off as dead or a deserter, Jon, and I’ve heard what they do to deserters. You’d risk losing your head for this? For the tiny chance they’ll set aside the hate they’ve held toward the Free Folk for thousands of years?”

“Yes!” Jon snapped. “If it might give our people a future, give _our girls_ a future, I’d risk it gladly.”

Something about that hit Tormund hard, because his eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open, and then he turned his face away. “Our girls,” he repeated, his voice quiet and strangely soft.

They tramped through the snow in silence for a few beats, watching the backs of the hunters up ahead.

Finally, Jon spoke again. “What’s your part in all this, anyway? I know it must be important—you’ve been in meetings just about every day.”

Tormund cleared his throat, his face still turned away from Jon. “Mance put me in charge of climbing the Wall.”

 _The Wall…_ Bile rose up inside of Jon, turning his mouth sour. Breathing and walking suddenly felt like monumental tasks, and he stumbled to a halt.

In his mind’s eye, he pictured that climb… Seven hundred feet straight up, into the clouds even, with only luck and a bit of rope between Tormund and a fall into oblivion. And if Tormund didn’t make it—or even if he did, and the battle for Castle Black got him instead—there were the girls orphaned, with Jon as the only thing even fumbling along as a parental figure. Would Ragna let him stay with Britta and Sigrid? Would he lose them too and be all alone, leave _them_ all alone? _No_ , he thought, his resolve as sharp as Valyrian steel. He wouldn’t let that happen, even if he had to fight Ragna tooth and claw for the right.

What’d be better, though, would be if it never came to that in the first place.

“We’ll find another way. Tormund, _please_. We’ll go to Castle Black, we’ll talk, make them see reason.” His voice held a distinct note of pleading.

Tormund stopped, facing Jon head-on now, and Jon was startled to see the damp shine of his eyes. “The food’s running out, the hunting gets worse every trip, and the dead are marching. If you want to make nice with the crows, we’re running out of time.”

“Then we’ll have to be quick, won’t we?” He couldn’t back down on this, not if he ever wanted to sleep with a clear conscience again. He had to at least _try_ to broker peace. “If it doesn’t work, there’s always your way.”

Tormund sighed, then put his giant paw of a hand on the back of Jon’s neck and gave it a squeeze, tapping their foreheads together lightly. “We’ll talk to Mance when we get back, okay? For now, we’d best shut our traps, or we’ll scare away any game left in these godforsaken woods.”

~~~

It took a few hours, but finally they brought down a good-sized stag. The blood trail led them to the creature’s final resting place in a frozen creek bed.

“Have at it,” Tormund said, passing Jon a knife. “The rest of you, keep an eye out for any fuckers that might smell the blood. Last thing we need is a bear or a shadow cat making off with our kill.”

As Jon set to field-dressing the stag, the Free Folk ranged out to form a guard around him, staring into the trees with their weapons ready. For an absurd moment, he wondered if this was what it’d feel like to be at the center of a kingsguard. Then he shook the thought off and glanced up at Tormund, who’d climbed the embankment directly ahead of him.

Tormund’s face was pensive as he scanned the forest. Sunlight filtered through the trees, turning his hair to molten copper and emphasizing the sharp lines of his nose and cheekbones, and Jon’s breath caught for a moment. Gods, he cut a striking figure.

“Less ogling and more gutting, crow,” one of the hunters said quietly, though his tone was playful rather than censorious.

“I’m not ogling,” Jon said, his protest half-hearted—mainly because it was also a lie. He had, indeed, been doing some ogling.

“Admiring, then,” the hunter said with a snort.

Abruptly, Tormund hushed them from his spot up top. “Hear that? Everybody get down.” He took his own order, dropping to his belly behind a fallen log, and the rest of the hunters fanned out along the creek bed in reaction, crouching and tugging their hoods up to disguise their hair, especially the redheads among them.

Jon hunched low over the stag, trying to keep his head down, and watched as a line of black-clad riders appeared through the trees, saddle leather creaking and buckles jingling. Thank the gods for Tormund’s sharp ears. There were at least a dozen Black Brothers, probably more. The blood on Jon’s hands itched, but he resisted the urge to scratch them, wary that the motion would draw attention.

He glanced sideways down the creek bed and stiffened. The Free Folk hunters were staring back at him, their jaws set and their hands clenched on their weapons. Their misgivings were plain to see. _Is he going to keep quiet? Is he going to get us all killed?_ Because here he was, in shouting distance of a party of armed Night’s Watch on horseback, his head full of insider knowledge about the Free Folk’s plans and camps. All he’d have to do was scramble up and yell for help, and the other hunters might not get a chance to kill him before they died themselves.

That same awareness was reflected in Tormund’s steady gaze from where the other man lay. _I’m counting on you_ , his eyes seemed to say. _We’re_ all _counting on you._

Breaking their cover would be a betrayal—of these hunters, of the Free Folk as a whole, of Tormund’s trust in him. Of Britta’s and Sigrid’s trust in him.

And so Jon stayed silent and still. He ducked even lower as the riders passed by, until they’d vanished into the trees ahead and their horses’ hoof-falls had grown fainter and fainter, until the Brothers’ hushed conversations died away.

After the riders were gone, the silence stretched and stretched, and when finally the rest of the hunters stirred from their spots and converged on him, he sat up straight and met a wall of stares. Not the suspicious, tense looks they’d bestowed on him minutes earlier, though. No, these stares were pure relief.

In a sudden flurry of motion, Tormund vaulted down into the creek bed and shoved his way past the other hunters on his way to Jon. His face was a study in ferocity, and Jon faltered. What could he possibly have to be angry about?

But then Tormund was crowding in close, dropping to his knees before Jon’s kneeling form, one hand curling around the back of Jon’s neck and the other clutching at his hip, the bow falling from his grasp to land on the ice.

A hot, wet mouth smashed against Jon’s lips, and he thought, _Oh_.

He froze for a second, mind icing over with shock.

Then, belly gone tight, blood fizzing in his veins, he angled his head and opened his mouth wider, welcoming Tormund into himself, welcoming the sting of his lip splitting under the other man’s fierce attention, welcoming the rasp of beard against his own stubble.

He lifted his hands to grasp Tormund’s face, then faltered, remembering his fingers were still bloody. He tried to lean back, holding them away from Tormund’s pale furs.

Tormund retreated in a hurry too, jerking his hands away as if Jon’s body were a burning ember. His expression was wide-eyed and open, bordering on apologetic, and in a moment of realization— _fuck, no, I didn’t mean…_ —Jon raised his hands and blurted, “I don’t want to get blood on you.”

Tormund’s shoulders dropped then, the tension leaving his body along with a half laugh, half sigh. “Is that all? I don’t care about a little blood, Jon Snow.” He leaned forward again with his head tilted, a silent, _Can I…?_ clear in his eyes.

As if there were any reality where Jon’s answer would be _no_.

Tormund settled his hands on Jon’s shoulders and ducked in for another kiss, slower and wetter than the first, almost gentle. Jon smiled against the other man’s mouth as their noses brushed. One of Tormund’s hands rose to cradle his jaw, and they spent several moments like that, learning the taste and feel of each other, lips and tongues and teeth.

“Oy, you two. I’m happy for ya, I am, but can we save the tongue-fucking for later? We’ve only got one deer, and the day’s half-over.” It was the hunter from earlier, the one who’d accused Jon of ogling—ahem, _admiring_ —Tormund.

 _Suppose I should be grateful he had enough patience to wait ’til now_ , Jon thought with a spark of humor. He and Tormund rested with their foreheads together for the span of a few breaths, still kneeling, and then they parted reluctantly.

Tormund stood and rested a hand on Jon’s shoulder, then stared down at him with eyes a searing, vibrant blue. “Are you mine now, little crow?”

Jon met his gaze, a pang of mingled joy and sadness running through his heart because he understood that no matter what happened—death or triumph, a happily-ever-after or a quick, brutal end—he’d remember this look in Tormund’s eyes ’til the last of his days.

“Aye,” he said, rasping the words out of his suddenly dry throat.

Tormund nodded, his expression gone gentler but no less fierce. “Then I’m yours, too.” He cracked a smile. “Let’s hope we don’t fuck it up, eh?”

Tormund broke eye contact to retrieve his bow, and Jon picked up the field-dressing knife in a daze. Giddiness swirled ’round in his stomach, though a dark thought soon tempered it. This _was_ really happening, right? His swollen mouth and heart and cock all said it was, but his brain was still scrambling to catch up, still trying to box out that insidious little voice—he’d dubbed it his “Lady Catelyn voice”—that whispered, _This is all a fever dream, and you’re going to wake up as a lonely smitten fool, pining for a man who’ll never love you as much as you wish he would._

 _Shut up_ , he ordered silently, fingers flexing on the knife handle. _I’m his now, and he is mine, and you can be as bitter as you want, Lady Catelyn, but you can’t take that from me._ A petty part of him resolved to live as happily as possible just out of sheer spite. Wasn’t there a saying for that? _“The best revenge is living well”?_

A hand swept over Jon’s hair, startling him back to awareness, and then it cupped the back of his skull. Tormund’s lips pressed against his forehead and dispelled his dark thoughts like smoke in a windstorm, and he let out a deep sigh.

A warmth that had nothing to do with temperature suffused his body, flowing outward from heart to limbs, a basking-heat filling him even as all around, flakes of fresh snow began to fall.

The lips and hand vanished, and he looked up to watch Tormund leave, admiring the strength in the man’s strides as he mounted the bank again and resumed his guard stance, silhouetted by the sun, his hair aglow.

 _Kissed by fire_ , he thought, and turned back to his work with a little smile.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks, as always, to everybody who's shown this story love and who's encouraged me to keep writing! You guys are awesome. <3
> 
> I did battle with this chapter for quite a while, but I'm finally happy with it, so I hope you all enjoy it and that you're still excited for more content to come!

Jon stood outside Mance’s tent as the remnants of dusk bled into night, flexing his gloved hands in a vain attempt to chase the tingling from his fingers. He’d been waiting there for about five minutes, though it felt much longer with the wind clawing at his back and the frigid air making his lungs ache. Time moved sluggishly in the face of such discomforts, as though its flow, normally liquid and smooth, had turned instead to a river of slush.

The news Tormund and the hunters bore for Mance shouldn’t have warranted more than a couple of minutes, surely, so what was taking so long?

The whole party had trooped inside straight away upon reaching camp, pausing only to hand along the game they’d harvested. Save for Jon, of course, who’d been left to his restless shifting by the tent flap, excluded from the conversation happening inside the tent. Even Ghost had disappeared on him, presumably to find the girls or Sharza the hunting dog, with whom he’d struck up a fast friendship during Jon’s warging lessons.

Finally, the stag-hide covering the entry jerked open and the hunters filed out, each of them casting Jon a smile or a curt nod on the way past. Then came Tormund, last of the pack, bearing a wide fur bundle across both arms.

“I’ve brought you a gift, Jon Snow,” he said with a grin, holding the bundle out. “Go on, then. Open it.”

Suspicion already growing about what he’d find inside, Jon reached forward and lifted the top layer of fur.

Beneath lay a long, slim object with a familiar white hilt.

_Longclaw._

Oh, thank the gods. Relief poured through him like a gulp of mead, warming his insides, and he couldn’t hold back a sigh as he accepted the sword and scabbard. It was quick work to unwind the sword belt and strap it ’round his waist, and then he closed his eyes, relishing the familiar weight against his hip, along with the sense of settledness that entered his bones at its presence.

“I missed this,” he admitted.

“Well, now you can stop your pining.” Tormund clapped his shoulder with a wide smile. “You earned it.”

Yes, he had, and speaking of _how_ he’d earned it…

“We still need to talk to Mance about the parley,” he said firmly, resting his hand atop the pommel.

Tormund’s smile shrank and he gave a resigned nod, as though he’d hoped Jon would change his mind but hadn’t really expected him to. “All right, all right. Let’s see if your golden tongue works on him as well as it does on me.”

~~~

“A parley,” Mance said flatly, once Jon and Tormund had settled around his fire with full horn mugs and explained Jon’s plan. “I didn’t take you for a fool, boy. I’ve half a mind to ask for that sword back in case you hurt yourself with it. If you had even a shred of self-preservation, you’d never set foot in that castle again after getting free of the damned place. I would know—I used to live there.”

“It’s not a matter of wanting to,” Jon said. “I think we _need_ to.”

Mance spun to face Tormund, who’d helped himself to part of Mance’s dinner and was gnawing the meat from a roasted bird’s leg. “You support this plan, Tormund?”

“I don’t like it, but I don’t like the idea of sending men to their deaths without need, either.” A _crack_ filled the air as Tormund split the bone to eat the marrow inside.

“Mmm.” Mance settled his gaze on Jon again. “And have you thought about the dangers of announcing our intentions? If we parley first, we lose the element of surprise.”

“That’s already gone,” Jon said grimly. “Why do you think Lord Commander Mormont brought so many Brothers north? He’d heard the Free Folk were gathering an army, and he wanted to investigate. And now, after what happened at the Fist, the Watch will be expecting an attack. They know we’re coming; they just don’t know when or how. A parley would cost us nothing, but it could gain us quite a bit.”

Mance was quiet for a few beats. “You truly think there’s a chance we could negotiate with them, don’t you? After all the centuries of bad blood?”

Jon’s eyebrows rose at the lack of faith. “Isn’t that what you did with the Free Folk clans?”

“I united them against a common enemy, for a common goal, and even then it took me twenty fucking years. We don’t have that with the Watch, not if they don’t know about the Others, and bringing them ’round could take time we don’t have.”

“You’re probably right,” Jon admitted, though it pained him to say so. “I know it’s a long shot, but I can’t let people die—on _either_ side—without at least giving it a try. We’ve already got plenty of widows and orphans.”

Mance sighed. “You have a good heart, boy. That’s not a bad thing, but sometimes it is a dangerous thing. The crows, they might kill you on sight.”

“Aye, they might.” Jon glanced over at Tormund, who cast the bird bone aside with more force than necessary, his gaze angled down to avoid Jon’s eyes. “I’ve got an idea for that.”

Tormund jerked his head up sharply. “What?”

“It might not work,” Jon hurried to say, not wanting to get Tormund’s hopes up—and, admittedly, his own hopes as well. “But it’s worth a try.” He explained his plan quickly, and at the end of it both Tormund and Mance were nodding, hope and skepticism warring on their faces.

“All right,” Mance said finally. He tapped his fingers against his drinking horn, looking thoughtful. “How about this—a trade. You tell me all you know about Castle Black and its defenses, and I let you have your parley. That way when your plan goes wrong, we still have mine, and it’ll be even stronger than before.”

Jon grimaced but nodded. That Mance had entertained his idea at all was a show of trust he hadn’t really expected.

Over the next several minutes, he recounted every defensive measure he could think of at Castle Black, every detail that might be useful—numbers, guard rotations, supplies. Once he’d exhausted his knowledge, he drained the last dregs from his mug and asked, “When do I leave?”

Mance shook his head. “I won’t send you in there alone. I like you, Jon Snow, don’t get me wrong, but the Free Folk need other voices too. You’ll go with Tormund and a couple of the less hot-headed elders.” He rose, strode to the tent flap, and spoke to someone outside. “Fetch Karsi for me. Dim Dalba too.”

Jon wondered at the wisdom of bringing someone called “Dim” on a high-stakes diplomatic mission, but maybe it was one of those misleading names, like the biggest man in a group being named “Tiny.” In any case, he kept his mouth shut. Mance had more to gain than to lose if the parley succeeded; there’d be no sense in the man sabotaging it.

Within a few minutes, a grizzled redheaded man and a dark-haired woman slipped into the tent and joined them by the fire. A round of introductions and explanations passed quickly, and both of the Free Folk offered grudging assent to the plan, though the woman, Karsi, raised an eyebrow at Tormund beforehand and asked, “You think this’ll work? You think the crows will sit down and talk instead of murdering us two steps into their fancy castle?”

“To save themselves, they might. A hundred thousand Free Folk against a few dozen crows… It’ll be a slaughter, even with the Wall slowing us down.”

“Why are we bothering to talk, then?”

Tormund glanced at Jon. “Because our people have lost enough already to the crows. I don’t want to lose more unless we have to.”

Karsi’s eyes darkened, and she nodded to him, then to Mance. “If you both think we should do this, I trust you.”

“Aye, me as well,” Dim Dalba added gruffly, and that was that.

“I’ll start moving our forces toward the Wall,” Mance said. “If the parley falls through”—and his tone implied he thought that was the obvious outcome—“we’ll still be ready to carry out Plan A. Well, Plan B now.” He drained the last of his drink. “All right, off with all of you. Go spend some time with your families. You’ll leave for Castle Black at dawn.”

Karsi stood and strode away, Dim Dalba and Tormund following. Jon paused by the tent flap on his way out. A question had been sitting curled at the back of his mind for half the conversation, and he voiced it now. “Why not ask me sooner about the Watch’s defenses?”

“I thought you’d lie,” Mance admitted bluntly. “When you first got here, Tormund made it clear you’d earned the right to not have anything ‘encouraged’ out of you, and I wasn’t sure we could trust what you shared of your own free will.” He nodded at Longclaw sheathed on Jon’s hip. “I’m sure now.”

“It’s… I… Thank you,” Jon settled for, and turned to go.

“Snow?”

He halted, still facing the door.

“If anyone can talk the Watch ’round, it’ll be you. Good luck, and try to come back in one piece, eh?”

~~~

Tormund was waiting for him outside. They fell into step, heading off toward their tent—and toward the girls, if Ragna hadn’t spirited the two of them away for the night.

“You’re a brave one, little crow,” Tormund said softly as they walked. “Crazy, but brave.”

Jon huffed out a laugh. “Aye, s’pose that makes us a matched set.” They continued in silence a ways before he asked, “What does it mean among the Free Folk, that we’re together?”

Tormund curled his arm around Jon’s shoulders and squeezed, almost playfully, but when he spoke, his voice was serious. “It means we belong to each other. It means if anybody tries to hurt you, I’ll fuck them up, and if anybody tries to hurt me, you’ll fuck them up. And if anybody tries to hurt the girls, we’ll _both_ fuck them up.”

Jon smirked and leaned closer to the heat of Tormund’s body, which was pressed all along his side. “I like the sound of that.”

“Aye. So do I.”

They passed a cookfire ringed by Free Folk, most of whom offered waves or greetings. On the far side, once Jon’s eyes adjusted to the darkness again, he could see their tent in the distance.

Silence fell save for the crunch of their boots on snow, but Tormund didn’t wait long to break it, turning Jon’s earlier question back on him. “What does it mean among _your_ folk? Us being together.”

“Well…it depends, I suppose. On how serious things are.” He hesitated—what if he didn’t get the answer he was hoping for? What if he was reading too much into their words in the creek bed?—but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and so he steeled himself and plowed ahead. “Are we serious, Tormund?”

Tormund snorted. “What do you think, Jon? You think I’d raise my kids with a casual fuck?”

Jon’s breath whooshed out like a wave, and he couldn’t stop his grin. “No. No, I reckon you wouldn’t.”

“Then you’d be right.” Tormund tugged Jon to a halt, then placed his hands on both shoulders and turned Jon to face him, those sky-blue eyes boring into Jon’s even through the shadows of night. “I mean to keep you, Jon Snow, for as long as you’ll let me. Forever, if that’s what you want.”

He drew a shaky breath at that. “Forever will do, I suppose, if there’s nothing longer.”

Tormund barked a laugh, then leaned in and kissed him, mouth as hot as the night was cold.

They broke apart only when a wolf whistle sounded from beside the fire they’d passed. “Ah, shut it!” Tormund hollered back, though he was grinning, and when they resumed their path toward the tent, his arm settled into place over Jon’s shoulders again.

Jon wrapped his own arm around Tormund’s back in response, tucking himself in close. “Men below the Wall don’t marry each other, but they can up here, can’t they? If they want to?”

“Mm-hmm. A man can steal a man or a woman a woman up here, makes no difference. Some folks don’t even do that, just start calling themselves married and have done with it.” Tormund didn’t elaborate on what “stealing” meant, but that was fine, because Jon already knew. Ygritte had explained that particular Free Folk tradition in great detail a few weeks back, a coy grin on her lips the whole time, and he was starting to realize why—on both counts.

“Below the Wall, things aren’t…official until there’s been consummation.”

Tormund made a questioning noise.

“You know, until you’ve wedded and bedded each other.”

A blank silence filled the air between them.

“For gods’ sakes—fucking. I’m talking about fucking.”

A grin bloomed on Tormund’s lips as he tilted his head, that now-familiar teasing glint clear in his eyes, and Jon huffed. “Oh, you fucker. You knew exactly what I meant. Is this what I have to look forward to? An eternity of you taking the piss every chance you get?”

“Oh yes,” Tormund said with a laugh. Then his voice turned deeper, his lips brushing the shell of Jon’s ear and sending a shiver through his body. “It comes with benefits, though, I promise.”

“Mmm, is that so?”

“It is. If the girls aren’t home, I could show you exactly what kind.”

Half of Jon wanted to latch onto that line of thought, but the other half got snagged by his mention of the girls. “Do you want to tell them right away? Or should we…ease into things?”

Tormund snorted. “If we didn’t, they’d figure it out soon enough. Might as well tell ’em. They’ll be excited.”

“You think so?”

“Jon, they’ve been pestering me for _weeks_ to make you their second papa. Their words, not mine.” His fingers flexed and tightened against the shoulder of Jon’s fur coat, the motion the only thing betraying that he wasn’t as calm as his lighthearted tone implied.

“I’d like that, you know. Being their second papa.” Jon smiled at the way Tormund’s grip relaxed. “I never thought I’d be a father, especially not after I came to the Wall.”

“Well, welcome to parenthood. You missed out on the crying and shitting when they were little, but the future still holds plenty of terrors that’ll turn you gray. Want to tell them in the morning?”

Jon hesitated. “After the parley might be better, I think. Right now I’m just their friend Jon, and if I don’t…” _If I don’t make it back, then knowing what they truly lost would hurt them more_ , he couldn’t quite bring himself to finish _._

Tormund heard what went unspoken, though, and gave a grim nod. “It hurts to lose someone you love no matter what you call them, but I see your point.”

They reached the tent then and pulled the flap aside, revealing Ragna stretched out on the girls’ half of the tent, Britta and Sigrid snuggled against her sides. Hilda the goat and Ghost were curled up at each end of their bodies, and all five were fast asleep.

“Looks like I’ll be showing you those benefits tomorrow instead, little crow,” Tormund murmured, patting Jon on the arse, and then he ducked inside, already starting to shuck his outer layer of furs.

“I’m holding you to that,” Jon said, and followed him in out of the cold.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold, the long-awaited Chapter 9! Thank you folks so much for your support and your patience, and I hope you enjoy! <3 I'm a bit nervous because there's a lot going on in this chapter, but I think it's the best I can make it right now, and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

“Do you really have to go, Papa?” Britta’s eyes shone damp and bright in the early morning sun as their family stood at the edge of camp, saying their goodbyes. She curled her hand tighter on the hem of Tormund’s furs, and with a sigh, Tormund knelt and framed her face with his palms.

“I do,” he said gravely, meeting her gaze. “But I’ll come back to you, to both of you”—his eyes strayed to Sigrid for a moment—“even if I have to cut through every fucking crow at Castle Black, okay?”

Jon had never heard threats of murder sound so comforting.

The girls must have felt the same, because although tears still streaked their faces, their backs straightened and their expressions settled like stone, a mix of resignation and solemn acceptance. _Gods, they raise ’em strong up here._

Tormund opened his arms and both girls rushed into his embrace. “I love you so much,” Jon heard him whisper. After they’d clung together for a while, the girls’ faces buried against Tormund’s shoulders, the occasional sniffle sounding, Tormund pressed kisses to their foreheads and then rose and ruffled their hair.

“Be strong for each other, okay?” he murmured.

As Tormund stepped away to hug Ragna, the girls turned their teary eyes to Jon. The three of them traded stares for a long moment, and then in a burst of speed, Britta lunged forward to clutch Jon’s leg. A heartbeat later, Sigrid followed suit, and he found himself cupping two tiny ginger heads against his ribs, wet warmth prickling the corners of his eyes.

“Don’t die,” Britta said, voice muffled by congestion and layers of fur, yet carrying an unmistakable note of command. “You have to come back to us.”

“I’ll try my hardest,” he promised. A fierce heat rose in his chest then, and he wanted to swear that he would return to them, wanted to give her that reassurance, but what if he was wrong? It would make his final words to her a lie, and he couldn’t stomach that. “I love you,” he said instead, because nothing could be truer right now. “Both of you.”

“Love you too,” Britta whispered, and on his other side, Sigrid’s grip tightened as she nodded in agreement.

A sharp pang pierced his heart as he looked down at the tops of their heads. For a second he was back in Winterfell, saying goodbye to Arya, and he wished he had something to give them beyond his words. Something tangible, something that would serve them well and keep them safe while he was gone—like Needle. _Daggers_ , he decided. _If I come back alive, they’re both getting daggers._

And then Ragna was steering the girls away by their shoulders, and Tormund was bumping up against Jon’s flank, face grim but resolute, and Dim Dalba was stepping up on Tormund’s other side. Half a dozen other Free Folk followed, having been chosen to escort them to the Wall. It was scarcely another moment before Karsi arrived, striding away from where she’d been crouching in front of two little girls—Johnna and Willa, Jon realized with an unpleasant jolt. Both girls were wiping their streaming noses and eyes on their sleeves, huddled together, and he had never been more grateful for Ragna in that moment as he imagined how hard it’d have been to leave Britta and Sigrid looking like that, so small and alone, no wizened maternal figure at their backs.

“Right, let’s move out,” Tormund ordered gruffly, his eyes fixed on the distance. As one, the group shouldered their packs and began the long walk south, to Castle Black and whatever fate lay in store for them there.

~~~

 _Please, please, please let this have been the right thing to do_ , Jon thought a fortnight later as the outer gate of Castle Black rose slowly, its chains rattling.

Finally the gate stopped moving, little bits of ice and snow still drifting through the air, and in the tunnel beyond waited several armed men of the Watch. At their fore stood Ser Alliser Thorne, naked sword in hand. He fixed his cold stare on Jon, shock flashing briefly in his eyes, and then he said after a long moment, “Didn’t expect to see you again, Lord Snow.”

“No, I don’t suppose you did.” _You probably had a fucking toast when you realized the Watch came back without me._ Hands clammy and throat tight, Jon wished he’d never had cause to come within five leagues of the Wall or the Watch or Alliser _Fucking_ Thorne ever again.

There was nothing for it, though. He had to do this, or he and all the friends and family he’d found these last few months were as good as dead.

Alliser stepped forward and swept his gaze over Tormund, Karsi, and Dim Dalba in turn, taking their measure. He eyed Tormund for an especially long moment, attention lingering on the wicked blade at his hip, and then Alliser’s face twisted into a sneer. “Been roughing it with the birds and the beasts, have you, Snow?”

 _“We’re not people to them”_ raced through his mind, an echo of Tormund’s words from their hunt weeks prior, and disgust flared inside him as the truth of Tormund’s statement sank in.

The air around Jon turned even colder from the force of the Free Folk’s restrained fury, and he was glad he’d brought only the three of them this close to the gate. He trusted them to hold themselves in check for the sake of the Free Folk’s future, but he had no idea if the men and women who’d escorted them south could do the same, and it was probably for the better that Tormund had told them to set up camp inside the tree line, out of arrow range.

Jon met Alliser’s gaze squarely and said, “We’re here to parley on behalf of Mance Rayder.”

“Ah. A traitor just like your father, it seems.” Alliser’s frigid stare traveled first over Jon, then over Ghost when the direwolf shifted at his side. “You all enter unarmed, and the wolf stays out here.”

After a pause, Jon nodded sharply. “Fine.”

He turned to Ghost and knelt, setting on a hand on the wolf’s neck. “Stay here, boy. I’ll be back soon, okay?” Hopefully, that wasn’t a lie. He gave the direwolf a final pat and straightened, facing Alliser and his men again, and heard the whisper of paws over snow as Ghost trotted back to the tree line, to the row of Free Folk who’d finished setting up camp and now stood grim and silent, waiting.

With an impatient sound, Karsi stepped toward the tunnel, but Jon put out a hand and grasped her arm. She stopped immediately, stiffening. “Before we come inside,” he said, “I ask for guest right. For _all_ of us.”

_Gods, please let this work._

There was a weighty pause, and then Alliser turned to one of the Brothers and snapped, “Fetch some bread.”

They all watched each other in silence, nearly a standoff, until the boy returned with a burnt stub of salted bread. Meant as an insult, surely, but it would serve its purpose.

The boy held the bread out to Tormund, who was nearest, but he merely glanced at it and turned a sharp-eyed stare on Alliser instead.

“Oh, for the seven’s sakes.” Rolling his eyes, Alliser snatched the bread and took a swift bite, then tossed the remainder to Jon. When Alliser didn’t immediately drop dead, Jon, Tormund, Karsi, and Dim Dalba passed the bread heel between them, each ripping off a piece, then stepped over the threshold of the tunnel and swallowed their portions.

They were divested of their weapons and escorted inside, straight to the great hall, where they were seated at a table that had been dragged to a corner of its own, away from both the high table and the rest of the seating. Probably the safest option if they wanted to avoid a melee.

Brothers of the Watch filtered into the room as the summons spread, and soon Jon found himself staring out at a sea of men both familiar and hostile. The only ones who didn’t glare accusingly once they caught sight of his companions were his little cluster of friends in the front corner and Maester Aemon when he was led in by his elbow, milky-eyed and stooped.

Finally, once the arrivals had slowed to a trickle and the room was rank with the stench of wet wool and body odor, Jon took a deep breath and stood, drawing the cool stares of all those who filled the hall.

“My name is Jon Snow. I speak here on behalf of Mance Rayder, King-Beyond-The-Wall, and all the rest of the Free Folk.”

Murmurs spilled through the hall at that, but they petered off when Maester Aemon raised a hand for silence. “Last I checked you were a sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch, Jon Snow. How is it that you’ve come to speak for the wildlings?”

Jon clenched his fists and cast his voice out into the room. “At the Fist of the First Men, when my Brothers left me for dead, it was a family of ‘wildlings’ who saved me. They brought me into their home, fed me from their table, and offered me their protection. They became my own family.”

Tormund bared his teeth in a grin, seated on Jon’s left. “Aye, wedded and bedded.”

Wait,  _what_? Jon took a startled breath, but it went unnoticed as a flurry of angry, incredulous mutters crossed the room.

“So you’re a wildling now,” Alliser sneered. “Tell me, _wildling_ , how can we trust the word of a man like you? You swore yourself to the Night’s Watch, and here you are, a deserter—no longer a Brother. Not much point in parleying with an oathbreaker, is there?”

Jon lifted his chin in defiance. “I’ve broken no oaths. I continue to guard the realms of men and protect the innocent, just as I vowed to when I joined the Watch—and _nowhere_ in my vows does it say I must stay at the Wall to fulfill those promises. Or are all of your rangers oathbreakers too?”

“You’re a fuckin’ liar, Snow!” a Brother at a nearby table piped up. “You broke yer vows! You married a wildling whore, and it’s right there in the words, innit? ‘Take no wife, father no children.’”

Quite a few stares settled on Karsi, who sat at Jon’s right, but they snapped over to Tormund instead when the redhead leaned forward, pressed his hands against the table, and spoke in a voice deliberately light, yet colder than the Bay of Ice. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but ‘wildling whore,’ that’s a first. Jon Snow took a husband, not a wife. And as for children, if you think he’s going to put a baby in _my_ belly, I can see why they sent you away to be a crow.” He tapped a finger against his temple.

Out in the crowd, Jon caught the stunned eyes of Sam, Grenn, Pyp, and Edd. Silence lingered for a beat as all the men of the Watch stared at him, or Tormund, or both.

Then the uproar began.

It only quieted after repeated calls from Maester Aemon. Once the maester had drawn everyone’s attention and the din had settled, he asked, “Is this true, Snow? You’ve married into a wildling clan?”

Karsi rolled her eyes and snapped, “Aye, he did, but what does it matter? We don’t have time for crying over where he puts his cock.”

Jon scrubbed a hand through his curls, sighing. “She’s right. Whose bed I share isn’t the point right now. What matters is survival—for all of us. There are horrors we can’t hope to match north of the Wall, ones that’ve been killing the Free Folk and the Watch alike, building their own army out of our dead. If the Watch won’t let the Free Folk come south, every man, woman, and child up there is going to be murdered and added to the Others’ ranks. Do you want that army to grow stronger?”

“Sounds like that’s your problem, not ours,” a Brother spoke up. “We’ve got the Wall and those huge fuckin’ gates between us an’ them. I reckon that’ll hold back an army.”

“And what about the patrols? Are us rangers just s’posed to go out there and die?” a second Brother snarled at the first.

“Then we seal the gates, stop the patrols,” the first man suggested.

“Absolutely not,” Alliser said. “We will fulfill our duties as men of the Watch, in full, just as the generations before us did for thousands of years. I’ll not be known as the Lord Commander who let it all fall to ruin. We will not dam up our gates and hide here!” He turned to stare directly at Jon. “We will continue to hold back the enemies of this realm. All of them.”

 _Fuck._ This was going nowhere, wasn’t it? He raised his voice to be heard over the steadily rising arguments of the Brothers. “Can you live with sentencing innocent children to die, Ser Alliser? Babies, pregnant women? Would you condemn them for the _heinous crime_ of not being born below the Wall?”

“Well, what about the smallfolk down here?” a Brother snapped back. “If we let these thieves and murderers through, who’s going to keep them safe? It’d be like putting the wolves and the sheep in a pen together.”

“Enough!” Alliser bellowed, and the room fell quiet. To Jon, he said, “Your little wildling friends will stay beyond the Wall, and neither pity nor scare tactics will sway us from good sense. I know what’s out there, Snow, but if you think I’m going to abandon thousands of years of duty and make a mockery of everything the Watch has sacrificed, you are mistaken. Alive or dead, _nobody_ will be coming through our gates.”

Jon’s temper flared, hot and quick as a flame catching fresh tinder. He smacked the table with a harsh _thwap_. “If you think these are scare tactics, Ser Alliser, you’ve got your eyes shut and your fingers stuffed in your ears. Some of these men were at the Fist—they know I’m speaking the truth. The dead are growing in numbers, in strength, and they’ll come for you as soon as they’re finished with us. What you’ve got won’t be enough to stop them.”

“Those men,” Alliser hissed, his gaze lingering on the table where Sam, Grenn, Pyp, and Edd were crowded, “saw the enemy and fled, so if anything did happen aside from a sneak attack by wildlings, they weren’t in much of a position to see it, were they?” A darkness flickered in his eyes, there but for a moment, and it was gone too quick for Jon to decipher what it meant. “For all I know, your wildling beasts are trying to trick us, to make us believe this threat is more dire than it truly is.”

“You accuse us of falsehood?” Tormund asked, fury and incredulity dripping from his voice. “We did _nothing_ to the crows at the Fist.”

“And even if we had, that’s a spit in the ocean compared to all the Free Folk you crows have slaughtered,” Karsi added.

“And _that’s_ nothing compared to the Brothers you’ve killed and the villages you’ve raided in the Gift,” Alliser retorted.

Dim Dalba cut in then, probably sensing that the argument would just devolve further if he didn’t. “Our dead aren’t the point right now, and neither are yours. We’re trying to put an end to this fucking mess so we can focus on the bigger threat—the one that doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t stop. The Others will come to your doorstep whether you give us refuge or not, whether you _believe_ us or not, but if they come with a hundred thousand Free Folk corpses among their number, you’ll wish you’d listened.”

Alliser shook his head. “I will not bow to fear or lies. This is a waste of time.”

A heavy silence fell.

“Apparently it is,” Jon agreed after a pause. He left the _you daft fuck_ unspoken but implied as he pushed his chair back to stand. “We’re leaving.”

“Before you go, Snow, there is one more matter,” Alliser said, his tone falsely casual, and Jon paused in the midst of standing up. “Despite your little claim that you’ve upheld your vows, I’m not convinced. Letting deserters walk free sets a bad precedent, wouldn’t you say?”

“As I’ve already said, my post is the North, and I have not left it.”

Alliser snorted. “Aye, but you intend to. Or are you parleying for everybody _but_ yourself to cross? Isn’t that so noble,” he sneered. “No, you’re a traitor, boy, and I’ll see justice done for it. Seize him,” he ordered the two men standing nearest to Jon.

“That’s not—” Maester Aemon began.

The men stepped forward, but as they did, Tormund rose to meet them, face a mask of ice, his chair sliding back with a scrape. Jon felt the air itself thicken, rasping in his lungs.

“You offered guest right to all of us—including Jon Snow,” Dim Dalba said then. “You hurt him, and you’ll be violating it.”

“Aye, put your leashes back on your dogs,” Karsi added.

Tormund looked as though he’d love nothing more than to vault over the table and rip into Alliser’s throat with his teeth, but his tone was all restrained fury when he said, “Mance Rayder sent him here under the terms of parley. He walked through those gates without a scratch, and he’ll leave the same way, because if he doesn’t, crow, when the Free Folk take your castle, I’ll make sure they know to split open your belly and feed your guts to you while you beg.” He braced both hands against the table, his gaze locked on Alliser’s face. “You. Don’t. Touch. Him.”

“You would threaten me in my own home?”

“You would threaten a guest in yours?” Tormund countered.

“Enough,” Maester Aemon interjected. “We formally acknowledged Jon Snow as a guest at the gate, and failing to continue to do so now would be dishonorable. His behavior is suspect, but so too would be ours if we offered safe passage and then revoked it.”

Alliser’s mouth worked as he searched for a response. Finally, he settled on a stiff, “We’re done here. Get the wildling scum out of here, all _four_ of them. They’ll die out in the wilds soon enough anyways.” He stared straight into Jon’s eyes. “You dug your grave, Snow, and now you’ll have to lie in it.”

And as Jon returned Alliser’s stare before leaving the room, he saw the truth reflected there—the fear and hate, the banked terror glazed in ice. Alliser knew the Free Folk had spoken true, that their words were not exaggerated or false; he just couldn’t admit it, lest the Watch fall apart around him like so much wet paper, terrified deserters scattering in all directions. He was a man holding the mantle of leadership, and denial was all that kept his crumbling castle intact.

~~~

“So…husband, eh?” Jon murmured a few minutes later as they stood before the inner gate, waiting for the Watch to let them through the tunnel. The weight of failure in his gut was like an anchor, and he grasped for something, anything to lighten it.

Tormund shrugged. “Not yet, but you’re gonna be, aren’t you?”

“Not my point.”

A smirk tugged at Tormund’s mouth, smoothing some of the stress lines on his face. “And that’s not a no.”

Jon ducked his head as a wave of shyness swept through him. “Why’d you say it?”

“Because if you’re not a guest here,” Tormund replied, his voice turning darker, “you’re a crow whose neck they can put on the block. If they decided you were still one of them, they could say parley rights don’t apply, because you can’t parley with one of your own. But if you’re married into a new family, have gone to live with them…that’s your new home. Isn’t that how your Southern marriages work, with that whole ‘cloak of protection’ bit and all?”

“Aye, they do. Usually for the bride, though, and I am _not_ a bride.” Nonetheless, Jon bumped his shoulder against Tormund’s in thanks.

“Mmm, you’re right, you don’t have the right bits for one. Don’t worry, though. I’ll still steal you right and proper, make it official.”

Jon snorted, but he couldn’t deny the little spark of heat the prospect sent through his gut. They hadn’t done more than share body heat, and kiss, and occasionally rut against one another in the dark—two weeks of walking all day and sleeping in the wind and cold, surrounded by other people, did wonders for dampening ardor—but at least he had the prospect of that on the horizon if they didn’t die horrible deaths first at the hands of the Watch or the Others.

Rushed footsteps sounded behind them, coming from the direction of the great hall, and Jon spun around, falling into a defensive stance. Tormund did the same beside him, hand dropping to his hip to reach for a nonexistent weapon.

Then the rounded figure and mop of dark hair registered in Jon’s mind, and relief sluiced through him like a river of cold water. _Sam._

The man was carrying their swords and knives, and as he speed-walked closer, his breaths puffing noisily, Tormund stepped forward with a fierce glare and put himself between Sam and Jon.

“It’s okay, Sam’s a friend,” Jon murmured, touching Tormund’s forearm, but Tormund held his position and stared directly into Sam’s eyes for a long moment, looking entirely ready to beat the man to death with his fists if the situation called for it.

Finally, Tormund broke eye contact to glance down at his sword and daggers in Sam’s arms, and Sam grimaced. “I’m not allowed to give these to you until you’re at the end of the tunnel. Sorry.”

“Right.” With a dissatisfied grunt, Tormund moved away to join Karsi and Dim Dalba. Apparently, he’d deemed Sam’s arrival to _not_ be the herald of a half-assed assassination attempt, and had decided Jon would be safe enough on his own.

Smiling, Jon reached out to Sam and embraced him quickly. “Gods, Sam, I’m glad to see you alive.”

Sam smiled too and juggled all the swords into one arm to hug him back. “You too.” Then his face turned grim. “It was very brave—and very stupid—to come here, you know.”

“I just wish it had worked. I fought for the right to do this, to offer a peaceful solution on behalf of the Free Folk, and it was a waste of time.” Jon couldn’t hide the frustration leaking into his voice. He wanted to rage, wanted to throw things or punch the next man to sneer at him, but the thought of ending up on the block after all stayed his temper.

As Jon spoke, something complicated happened in Sam’s expression, a mingling of emotions that gave him pause. “No, not a waste at all,” Sam said.

With a rumble and a series of _clank_ s, the inner gate began to rise, and he and Sam stepped forward into the tunnel along with the Free Folk. Sam glanced around to make sure none of the other Night’s Watch were in earshot, then leaned close and with his free hand, he slid a bundle from beneath his cloak.

“I’ve seen what’s out there, Jon. The dead marching, the White Walkers… I killed one, too, though nobody believes me when I tell them so. This is what I used.” He passed the bundle to Jon, who quickly tucked it under his own furs, hoping none of the Brothers had seen it or heard its contents clattering.

Once it was safely stowed away, Sam clutched at Jon’s arm, leaned closer still, and whispered, “I’ve some bad news, as well. The war in the south—it’s going badly for your brother.”

A jolt of dread froze Jon in place. “What happened?”

Sam tugged at his arm, urging him to keep walking. “There was a betrayal. At a wedding of all places, too. He fought his way out but lost half of his men, and he doesn’t have enough troops to fight anymore, so they’ve pulled back north, to Bear Island. The Boltons and Freys have sided with the Lannisters.”

Jon’s breath stalled out, and he stared at the ground through glassy eyes. _Gods. Gods, Robb is going to lose his head, just like Father. My_ whole family _will lose their heads._ “Why are you telling me this? There’s nothing I can do.”

Sam checked over his shoulder nervously. “That’s just it, though—you can. He sent a raven to Castle Black for you. He’s still a _king_ right now, Jon. He can free you of your vows to the Watch. You can go home.” There was a thread of sadness in the way Sam said it, and Jon’s heart clenched as he realized why. Sam would never have that option. He was stuck here for the rest of his life, however long or short a time that might be. And yet he wanted Jon to have a chance at freedom, at safety, if Jon could take it.

A silence fell between them, and then Sam changed the subject. “You remember Gilly, Craster’s daughter? I brought her south,” he admitted. “There was a mutiny at Craster’s Keep, after we escaped the battle at the Fist. I ran away with her, and she’s in Mole’s Town now with the baby.”

How many shocks were allowed to happen in a single conversation? Jon was sure they were approaching the limit. “How in the seven hells did you get the Watch to let her through?”

Sam offered up a conspiratorial smile. “I didn’t. There’s a secret passage at the Night Fort, called the Black Gate. Only a sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch can open it by reciting his vows.” He shot Jon a significant look. “It’s not guarded.”

Jon’s breath stuttered in his chest. _A secret passage…_ Did Sam mean this information just for him, as an escape route back to Robb? Or was it meant for him _and_ the Free Folk? A bloodless way past the Wall, a siege averted, no death in droves for the Free Folk or for the Watch? If they could get an army a hundred thousand strong to the other side, the Watch wouldn’t have a rabbit’s chance in the Wolfswood of stopping them.

Not unless combined forces from the south marched up to repel the “wildling invaders”…and they would march, if the war between Robb’s forces and the Lannister army was truly lost now. But, hmm, what if…

They reached the outer gate, and Sam squeezed Jon’s arm. “Think on it, okay? If you want to get in touch with Robb, leave a message inside the Night Fort”—he surreptitiously handed Jon paper and ink, produced from one of his pockets—“and I’ll pass it on to your brother.”

Jon nodded in assent, his mind spinning. Sam handed over the Free Folk’s weapons, hugged him again quickly, then ducked away to return to the castle as the outer gate began to rise.

A flood of golden light spilled into the tunnel’s gloom, and Jon sucked in a deep, steadying breath as he passed the blades back to their owners. Then he strode into the crisp mid-morning air, flanked by Tormund and Karsi and Dim Dalba—by his people, the ones he could maybe, possibly save now, if luck and Sam had anything to do with it.


End file.
